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2024 Presidential Election Thread - Let's keep the party going.


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9 hours ago, Chuckie Finster said:


I’m telling you, both of them with Rogan or Theo or one of the other right-leaning but not explicitly Republican podcasts would have a higher potential rate of return than almost anything else they could do.

Theo was more impressive in his interviews with these politicians than I expected him to be. That Bernie one was really good. 

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9 hours ago, Chuckie Finster said:


I’m telling you, both of them with Rogan or Theo or one of the other right-leaning but not explicitly Republican podcasts would have a higher potential rate of return than almost anything else they could do.

Good call. She could really disarm Rogan.

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5 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

If a candidate wins the popular vote by more than 5 points and loses the electoral college, there should be a full scale revolt.

That’s unlikely. I believe a ~2.5 point national win is enough to win the EC for Dems in 2024. It might even be slightly less. A 5 point PV win = winning at least all the Biden states and probably flipping NC

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9 hours ago, immamac said:

 

Its hilarious how much money goes into this shit and no one knows shit about fuck.

I'm not sure about this.

This guy's smart, and in his day job, he works with smart people. It's hard for me to believe that he dump money into a project that he doesn't have data to support. His group favored Biden from very early on in the 2020 process and maintained their support of Biden even when he was faltering early that year. Also correctly, this winter, he was worried about Biden and pushing Kamala.

But you and others bring up a good point. Next time I see him, I'll ask how public/private polling differs and what other types of data he and his PAC collect. I probably won't see him again until after the election, but I don't think he'd mind sharing broad strokes about their techniques.

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9 minutes ago, quigley said:

I'm not sure about this.

This guy's smart, and in his day job, he works with smart people. It's hard for me to believe that he dump money into a project that he doesn't have data to support. His group favored Biden from very early on in the 2020 process and maintained their support of Biden even when he was faltering early that year. Also correctly, this winter, he was worried about Biden and pushing Kamala.

But you and others bring up a good point. Next time I see him, I'll ask how public/private polling differs and what other types of data he and his PAC collect. I probably won't see him again until after the election, but I don't think he'd mind sharing broad strokes about their techniques.

Do you know how insane the shit that Jane Street does with computers is? 

What about any company actually model training LLMs? 

The problem of tracking and simulating every single vote of every living person in real time based on who saw what and what their feelings are is easily computationally possible. 

Instead we have a bunch of people using the equivalent of a very large spreadsheet they update once a day. 

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9 hours ago, Gil Bang said:

absolutely.  The "exodus" from CA has made us greater.  Most of those that have left are total shitheads, and they've gone to shithead-friendly places. 

So would you say California is emptying their prisons and insane asylums and sending them East?  We need a wall. 

1 hour ago, Dnaguy said:

Their identity.

1.) A lot of them identify AS Republican. They have maybe their entire life. 
2.) Kamala hasn’t laid out a specific plan for their specific situation

3.) Kind of fits with #1 but to vote for someone other than an R or other than Trump when you already voted for him 2 other times means you have to admit you were wrong in 2016 & 2020. People aren’t good at admitting that or taking responsibility in their choices. You can go on blaming others or other events if you keep doing what you always do and the results don’t change. By making different choices you have to recognize mistakes and kind of own them in a way.

5.) fits with #2 but They’re likely Boomers. Boomers want everything to be about them. So ask an u decided boomer why and they’ll tell you it’s because none of Kamala policies will help them. Fuck it if Trump ends democracy bc they have maybe 10 more years on earth or so. who TF cares anyway. 

 

Exactly. They have cognitive dissonance because the head coach of their team is a shitheel getting DUIs and cheerleaders pregnant with a bonus case of syphilis after spiking their drinks and it reflects on them but they can’t ignore it and don’t want to switch teams.   Think of all the Penn St fans and Paterno. 

Edited by TexasEd
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30 minutes ago, immamac said:

Do you know how insane the shit that Jane Street does with computers is? 

What about any company actually model training LLMs? 

The problem of tracking and simulating every single vote of every living person in real time based on who saw what and what their feelings are is easily computationally possible. 

Instead we have a bunch of people using the equivalent of a very large spreadsheet they update once a day. 

You could simulate it. Whether that simulation is predictive is the issue. The previous attempts at doing something like this that I'm aware of have not resulted in anything useful. 

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7 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

You could simulate it. Whether that simulation is predictive is the issue. The previous attempts at doing something like this that I'm aware of have not resulted in anything useful. 

Potato Cambridge Analytica was pretty successful. They barely knew how to computer. 

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1 minute ago, immamac said:

Potato Cambridge Analytica was pretty successful. They barely knew how to computer. 

I think that is questionable. They were good at generating propaganda to try and influence voters. But I don't think there is much evidence that their methods were actually predictive of anything. 

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3 hours ago, HenryJames said:

“Honey, wake up. New Trump scam just dropped.”

  Hide contents

Trump Rolls Out His New Cryptocurrency Business

In a livestream, Donald Trump formally introduced World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture led by two digital currency entrepreneurs with little experience running high-profile businesses.

Published Sept. 16, 2024Updated Sept. 17, 2024, 12:06 a.m. ET

Former President Donald J. Trump’s involvement in World Liberty Financial has raised concerns about conflicts of interest and alarmed some of his most vocal supporters in the industry.Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Sign up for the On Politics newsletter.  Your guide to the 2024 elections.

A day after an apparent assassination attempt against former President Donald J. Trump, he appeared on a livestream on Monday to champion his latest business venture: cryptocurrencies.

“Crypto is one of those things we have to do,” Mr. Trump said on X. “Whether we like it or not, I have to do it.”

Beside him were his collaborators, including a family friend; Mr. Trump’s two oldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump; and two little-known crypto entrepreneurs with no experience running a high-profile business. Together, they were rolling out Mr. Trump’s crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, a project that has already raised concerns about the former president’s conflicts of interest and even alarmed some of his most vocal supporters in the industry.

Mr. Trump has promoted the venture since August, but its exact purpose remains unclear. No official launch date has been set. On the livestream, he did not address the project directly, leaving the details to the two entrepreneurs, Chase Herro and Zachary Folkman. Mr. Herro has described himself as “the dirtbag of the internet,” while Mr. Folkman used to teach classes on how to seduce women.

It’s highly unusual for a presidential candidate to embark on a new business just weeks before Election Day, and even rarer for one to aggressively promote a venture designed to benefit himself and his family. But throughout his political career, Mr. Trump has engaged in business dealings that ethics experts have flagged as problematic. He is the majority owner of Trump Media & Technology Group, the publicly traded parent company of his social media platform, Truth Social, which accounts for some $2 billion of his personal wealth.

Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said that if Mr. Trump was elected in November, his involvement in the crypto venture would create serious conflicts of interest. The Securities and Exchange Commission has cracked down on the industry, arguingthat nearly all cryptocurrencies are unregistered securities and ought to be regulated like stocks traded on Wall Street.

Mr. Trump “would be able to push regulatory agencies to favor businesses he is involved in,” Ms. Brian said. Ethics experts have said that his ownership of the social media company raises similar issues.

Representatives for the Trump Organization and World Liberty Financial did not respond to requests for comment.

For years, Mr. Trump was a crypto skeptic who denounced Bitcoin as a “scam.” But on the campaign trail, he has morphed into a vocal supporter, speaking at a popular industry conference and drawing donations from crypto executives.

Planning for World Liberty Financial began nine months ago, according to the Trump family friend involved in the venture, Steve Witkoff, a real estate magnate who helped spearhead it. On the livestream, Mr. Witkoff said he introduced Mr. Trump’s sons to Mr. Herro and Mr. Folkman, who have overseen the venture.

By July, AMG Software Solutions, a company based in Puerto Rico, had filed a trademark for the new platform. The next month, Mr. Trump, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. started posting about it on X.

On the livestream on Monday, Mr. Trump and his sons said that crypto would transform the financial system, without detailing what their business venture is designed to accomplish. But privately, some people involved in World Liberty Financial have pitched it as a borrowing and lending platform, according to three people with knowledge of the project. A white paper for the venture, reviewed by The New York Times, said that it would feature a new cryptocurrency called $WLFI that would be sold to the public.

On its official X and Telegram accounts, World Liberty Financial has said that the project aims to drive “mass adoption of stablecoins,” a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a constant value of $1. One person briefed on the project described it as similar to an existing service called Instadapp, an application that allows users to manage their investments across a range of crypto platforms.

Several members of the Trump family have roles in the business, according to a list of team members included in the white paper. Mr. Trump’s title is “chief crypto advocate.” Barron Trump, his 18-year-old son, is listed as the project’s “DeFi visionary,” a reference to the branch of crypto known as decentralized finance. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are each described as a “web3 ambassador.”

A disclaimer at the end of the document said the platform wasn’t owned or managed by Mr. Trump, the Trump Organization or his family, though family members might receive compensation. (The white paper was earlier reported by the crypto news outlet CoinDesk.)

Behind the scenes, Steve Witkoff has taken a hands-on role, according to a person familiar with the planning. He envisioned the project partly as a way to give Barron Trump some experience with entrepreneurship, the person said, and steer him away from memecoins, a scam-ridden segment of the crypto industry. A spokesman for Mr. Witkoff declined to comment.

Barron Trump did not participate in the livestream, but the former president described him as a crypto enthusiast. “He’s got four wallets or something,” Mr. Trump said. “He knows this stuff inside out.”

The key figures in the project are Mr. Herro and Mr. Folkman. On the livestream, Mr. Herro, who sometimes spells his surname Hero, said his aim was to give “the everyday American” access to crypto investments.

“This country’s been so good to me, and crypto has been so good to me,” Mr. Herro said.

Mr. Herro is a relatively obscure figure in the crypto world. As a young man, he has said, he was a habitual drug offender and was imprisoned, but later turned his life around and became rich. In 2022, he appeared at a crypto seminar hosted by Jordan Belfort, who inspired the 2013 movie “The Wolf of Wall Street.” At the event, Mr. Herro described stablecoins as “the biggest innovation since sliced bread,” and said his favorite of the coins was “vivacious and insane and almost borderline a Ponzi scheme.”

Over the years, Mr. Herro has worked closely with Mr. Folkman, who founded a company called Date Hotter Girls, which offered seminars on “attracting, dating and keeping women of beauty and quality.”

Mr. Folkman and Mr. Herro have pursued a range of business ventures together, first in the U.S. Virgin Islands and later in Puerto Rico. Both have homes in Puerto Rico, which has become a haven for crypto enthusiasts who were drawn by a generous tax break, according to public records. Mr. Folkman is listed in a government database as one of the thousands of people living in Puerto Rico who receive the tax break.

Before they set up shop in Puerto Rico, Mr. Folkman and Mr. Herro ran the Nexus Group, an internet advertising and media company in the U.S. Virgin Islands that received a similar business tax break. Mr. Herro also ran a separate crypto trading business there called Pacer Capital.

In the U.S. Virgin Islands, Mr. Herro and Mr. Folkman worked with Alex Golubitsky, a lawyer listed in the white paper as World Liberty Financial’s legal counsel.

In an email, Mr. Golubitsky said he could not discuss the crypto venture. But he referred to Mr. Herro and Mr. Folkman as “talented tech entrepreneurs.”

On the livestream, Mr. Folkman said that lawyers were in the room with him, “staring daggers at me.” Because of the government crackdown on crypto, he explained, the digital currency associated with World Liberty Financial would be available in the United States only to accredited investors.

“The lawyers are getting nervous back there,” he said. “They’re sweating.”

 

 

Quote

 

led by two digital currency entrepreneurs with little experience running high-profile businesses.

 

sounds about right

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48 minutes ago, immamac said:

Do you know how insane the shit that Jane Street does with computers is? 

What about any company actually model training LLMs? 

The problem of tracking and simulating every single vote of every living person in real time based on who saw what and what their feelings are is easily computationally possible. 

Instead we have a bunch of people using the equivalent of a very large spreadsheet they update once a day. 

I don't even know who Ms. Street is.

/s

They certainly haven't been perfect, and he has significant anxiety now. I'll ask him what they're doing and report back.

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2 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

I think that is questionable. They were good at generating propaganda to try and influence voters. But I don't think there is much evidence that their methods were actually predictive of anything. 

The problem being overlooked with any modeling, computer or otherwise, is that it requires participation from a large enough sample size.  Ultimately, the vast majority of people either aren't asked to participate, and of those asked, how many refuse?  Think about it, how many times have you ever been asked to participate in a survey, and how many times have you refused.  I'd be willing to be that most of us have refused way more times than agreed to participate.  

It's sort of like customer feedback surveys, companies know that all they are going to get in terms of feedback is from those that are disgruntled.  That doesn't mean there isn't valuable data for company with those sort of things, but to think that its anywhere near a complete picture is laughable.  

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4 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Naturally, Suffolk drops that really good Harris +3 poll in PA and Insider Advantage counters with Trump +2

Even RCP thinks Insider Advantage sucks ass - in 2020, they were 2.4 off the final margin, 67% error rate that favored Republicans.  They were worse in 2022 - 5.8 off the final margin and 81% error rate in favor of the GOP.  Only Trafalgar (86%) and Rasmussen (100%) were worse.

So when you see polls, they generally fall into these categories:

GOP-lean or outright GOP partisans: Insider Advantage, Trafalgar, Rasmussen, Remington, SOCAL, Patriot Polling, Cygnal, Fabrizio (Trump's campaign pollster), McLaughlin
DEM-lean or outright DEM partisans: PPP, GQR, D4P, GSG
Mainstream: Suffolk, Marist, Monmouth, Siena, Quinnipiac, Morning Consult, Bloomberg, YouGov, SSRS (CNN), Beacon / Shaw & Company (Fox News)

Super helpful - thank you. I've been trying to compile something like this in my head for a while now to keep everything straight and you took care of it for me.

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30 minutes ago, immamac said:

Potato Cambridge Analytica was pretty successful. They barely knew how to computer. 

I don't think they were polling per say.  They were watching engagement clicks and targeting messages at certain susceptible groups.  Basically creating the warped dual reality where some people just parrot things like radical left, border, and woke without knowing anything about the issues just that they need to have a guttural/emotional response of fear and hatred that motivates them to vote.  There wasn't any polling on it just building the legions of braindead facebook zombies.

 

22 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

I think that is questionable. They were good at generating propaganda to try and influence voters. But I don't think there is much evidence that their methods were actually predictive of anything. 

This.

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1 hour ago, immamac said:

Do you know how insane the shit that Jane Street does with computers is? 

What about any company actually model training LLMs? 

The problem of tracking and simulating every single vote of every living person in real time based on who saw what and what their feelings are is easily computationally possible. 

Instead we have a bunch of people using the equivalent of a very large spreadsheet they update once a day. 

It beggars belief how many organizations (that I've seen firsthand) are using a literal excel sheet regression models to steer tens to hundreds of millions of investment every day and then selling it to their board as "machine learning".

 

38 minutes ago, immamac said:

Potato Cambridge Analytica was pretty successful. They barely knew how to computer. 

They also had the help of the russian government to weaponize facebook. CA was a major part of why brexit happened, and it's been a coup d'etat against the strength of Brittain as a nation and economic powerhouse without a shot fired.

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32 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Naturally, Suffolk drops that really good Harris +3 poll in PA and Insider Advantage counters with Trump +2

Even RCP thinks Insider Advantage sucks ass - in 2020, they were 2.4 off the final margin, 67% error rate that favored Republicans.  They were worse in 2022 - 5.8 off the final margin and 81% error rate in favor of the GOP.  Only Trafalgar (86%) and Rasmussen (100%) were worse.

So when you see polls, they generally fall into these categories:

GOP-lean or outright GOP partisans: Insider Advantage, Trafalgar, Rasmussen, Remington, SOCAL, Patriot Polling, Cygnal, Fabrizio (Trump's campaign pollster), McLaughlin
DEM-lean or outright DEM partisans: PPP, GQR, D4P, GSG
Mainstream: Suffolk, Marist, Monmouth, Siena, Quinnipiac, Morning Consult, Bloomberg, YouGov, SSRS (CNN), Beacon / Shaw & Company (Fox News)

Keep in mind that Scott Rasmussen left Rasmussen Reports in 2013 and has a new polling firm called Rasmussen Media Group (RMG). RMG is more reputable than Rasmussen Reports.

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1 hour ago, Js1 said:

Missouri poll has Trump up 10. He won it by 16 in 2020.  We’ve had something now like 4 red state polls showing reduced margins for Trump by quite a bit - AR, AK, MO, IA

I feel like the more useful comparison is polls now vs polls on the eve of the election in 2020. Apples to apples. 

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Just now, BrickHorn said:

I feel like the more useful comparison is polls now vs polls on the eve of the election in 2020. Apples to apples. 

Yeah, polls were very leftward slanted in 2020.  Basically the same 10 point lead in the final polls of 2020.

 

President: general election, Missouri, 2020

Oct. 20-Nov. 2
2,926 LV Axios Biden
44%
54%
Trump   Trump +10
Oct. 20-Nov. 2
2,926 RV Axios Biden
44%
53%
Trump   Trump +9
Oct. 23-Nov. 1
487 LV   Biden
43%
55%
Trump More Trump +11
Oct. 22-31
1,109 LV   Biden
43%
52%
Trump   Trump +9
Oct. 28-29
1,010 LV Missouri Scout Biden
45%
50%
Trump More Trump +5
Sept. 22-Oct. 19
3,955 LV Axios Biden
45%
52%
Trump   Trump +7
Sept. 22-Oct. 19
3,955 RV Axios Biden
46%
51%
Trump   Trump +5
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3 minutes ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

Yeah, polls were very leftward slanted in 2020.  Basically the same 10 point lead in the final polls of 2020.

It’s possible polls have adjusted or some phenomenon in the past four years has shifted their bias to the right. But the safest assumption would be that the 2024 polls will have just about the same correlation to 2024 results as the 2020 polls had to 2020 results. 

In this particular case, that implies that Harris is in just about the same position in Missouri that Biden was in 2020. 

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10 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Finally happened - Harris crossed into a positive favorability rate average on 538.

+0.1

just came here to post it. The individual polls have her a positive for several weeks now and it just took some time for 538 to knock down the weight of the older polls. great news.

as comparison, Trump is at a -9.6% has been trending worse lately on 538.

EDIT: 538 has also adjusted their overall win probability to 61-39. It was 55-45 a week ago. While not a giant move, it does show that we're going in the right direction, no matter who is truly ahead.

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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It's not about having no reason to believe that poll bias has flipped since 2020, we have a very clear reason to think it has done so complete with multiple election cycles worth of evidence. Polls have had a heavy R bias since Dobbs, the question that should be asked is what evidence is there to think that bias has suddenly flipped in the last year. 

At best for the Presidential race you could theorize that quiet Trump voters counter the Dobbs effect. But that only helps down ballot with straight ticket voters. 

Edited by Huckleberry
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1 hour ago, immamac said:

Do you know how insane the shit that Jane Street does with computers is? 

What about any company actually model training LLMs? 

The problem of tracking and simulating every single vote of every living person in real time based on who saw what and what their feelings are is easily computationally possible. 

Instead we have a bunch of people using the equivalent of a very large spreadsheet they update once a day. 

You make it sound  like polling is to politics as $9.95 newsletters are to college football.

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2 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

It's not about having no reason to believe that poll bias has flipped since 2020, we have a very clear reason to think it has done so complete with multiple election cycles worth of evidence. Polls have had a heavy R bias since Dobbs, the question that should be asked is what evidence is there to think that bias has suddenly flipped in the last year. 

At best for the Presidential race you could theorize that quiet Trump voters counter the Dobbs effect. But that only helps down ballot with straight ticket voters. 

This.  It's Dobbs.

There are multiple examples of people just straight up lying to pollsters since Dobbs.  The KS vote was 50/50 polling and won like 70/30.  There are other examples but the bias leans heavily R in polling.

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3 hours ago, Thrawn said:

I have dabbled in crypto off and on for a while (currently no holdings). However, I think I have always had a pretty clear head about what it actually is, gambling. I have actually come out ahead, but a lot of people don't. Knowing how Trump's previous gambling plays have gone, I'm expecting this one to flame out spectacularly. Unfortunately, due to his skills as a grifter he will probably come out ahead. Magats everywhere will still sing his and his cryptos praises as they are losing their shirts. Rinse and repeat.

Well, Trump's main moneymaker for years has been licensing his name to various things, ala Kardashians.  Licensing is a win/win for the licensor, usually, because if the licensee takes off, mo money, mo money, mo money.  If the licensee fails, no financial loss to licensor, just the hit to credibility/good will.  The Trump brand has seemed impervious to the latter; it's 100% ill will.

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2 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

This.  It's Dobbs.

There are multiple examples of people just straight up lying to pollsters since Dobbs.  The KS vote was 50/50 polling and won like 70/30.  There are other examples but the bias leans heavily R in polling.

The Ohio referendum was also supposed to be close. It was not 

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comparing to clinton, i can see non-college whites being worse for harris.  other than that, the other groups feel like harris would do no worse than break even from clinton's position.  yoots, women, black, certainly better.  maybe on college.  no change on non-black minority imo.  all this in an environment when (1) 'woman' isn't as big of an issue because of clinton; (2) trump is both fleshed out and lost the novelty position as a non-pol running for president.

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12 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

It's not about having no reason to believe that poll bias has flipped since 2020, we have a very clear reason to think it has done so complete with multiple election cycles worth of evidence.

Interesting. Would be good to see a rigorous study showing a consistent right-wing shift in polls since 2020, and in particular one that differentiates between elections with and without abortion issues directly on the ballot. 

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I've read that the Florida abortion protection ballot initiative has polled as high as 55% plan to vote for it, 26% against and 20% unsure.  I believe it requires 60% approval to pass.

Now it's possible that someone will vote for the abortion protection and also vote for Trump, but I doubt that's high number. And perhaps a few will only vote on the abortion initiative and leave the rest blank. I have to believe that the venn diagrams for both sides of the initiative and the presidential candidate have a high correlation.

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