This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
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This week on Curmudgeon’s Corner Sam and Ivan talk about the Fed raising interest rates, and of course we spend a long time on the Presidential race. To round it out we briefly touch on wifi networking, dedicated cameras vs smartphone cameras, Star Wars, the Shkeli arrest, hoverboards, self-driving cars, and more. Oh, and 6 year old Alex joins us to talk about the exciting events of Minecraft Storymode Episode 4.
Click below to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
Recorded 2015-12-18
Length this week – 1:37:29
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Show Details:
- (0:00:49-0:13:27) But First
- Agenda
- Home Wifi Networking
- Standalone Cameras vs Phone Cameras
- (0:14:05-0:27:42) Fed Interest Rates
- What is this Fed Rate?
- What is “near zero”
- Reason for raising rates
- Negative interest rates
- Other countries that raised rates
- What affect will this have?
- Ivan Disconnect
- Wrap Up
- (0:28:26-1:10:10) Election 2016
- Press driving Trump phenomenon?
- Trump fatigue?
- Lots can change, but…
- Early State Dynamics
- Odds Adjustments
- Latest Republican Debate
- Trump third party statements
- Where are the Democrats?
- Sanders accessing Clinton data (breaking)
- Alex Interlude: Minecraft Storymode Episode 4
- (1:10:59-1:37:09) Lightning Round
- Star Wars
- Budget Deal
- Shkreli arrest
- Climate Deal
- Hoverboards
- Rules for Self-Driving Cars
- Bush Momentum?
- What could hurt Trump?
- Trump vs Perot
At long last, there has been enough state level polling in enough states over a long enough period of time that Trump makes it onto my “top five best polled candidate pairs” list. Until now, there simply was still more and better polling data around various other candidates, simply because they had been considered “contenders” for longer, and so therefore had amassed a wider variety of polls in more states. But no longer. It is time to look at Clinton vs Trump.
The various ups and downs over the last few months should not be considered real changes in Trump’s support. Instead, it is simply the the “average of the last five general elections” starting point that I use for each state gradually being replaced with real polling data on Clinton vs Trump. So we’ll only start looking at trends and changes starting now.
But where are we right now? With the usual caveats about how long it is until the election, lets do the rundown:
So… Clinton wins based on the current state level polling. But it is close. The tipping point state only has a Clinton lead of 2.4%. So 1.2% of people nationwide changing their minds, or the undecideds leaning Republican, or a systematic polling bias… all could easily wipe out that lead.
There is a lot of talk about how if Trump ends up as the nominee, we would see a Democratic win with margins unheard of since Reagan’s landslide over Mondale. This is by no means clear.
People point to how uncomfortable people are with Trump. For instance this CBS/NYT Poll from today shows 64% of the voting public “concerned or scared” about Trump becoming president. Sounds huge right? How can anybody win with numbers like that? But then you notice that, wait, in the same poll, 57% of the voting public are “concerned or scared” about Clinton becoming president. When you put those two together, it isn’t at all clear how things would work when you put the two head to head.
People talk about how Trump just couldn’t possibly win. How he alienates certain key voting blocs. How he will surely implode at some point. All sorts of reasons are mentioned. But a lot of them just boil down to “there is just no way, I don’t believe it.”
And they may be right that he won’t win. The analysis above shows Clinton winning over Trump. Most head to head polling nationally that I have seen shows Clinton winning. RCP’s Clinton vs Trump average has Clinton up by 3.3% today. But all indications with polling today show Clinton vs Trump as close. Not a Clinton blowout.
Now, to make explicit the caveat I noted at the top, there is a long time until the election. We don’t even have nominees yet. Trump winning the nomination is still one possibility among many. And even Clinton hasn’t wrapped things up yet. And a lot can happen in a campaign. General election polls this far out are NOT PREDICTIVE of the final result. They show us how things are RIGHT NOW at best. Things will move between now and next November.
But is there any reason to believe that all of the movement will be toward Clinton? That people will see the Clinton vs Trump comparison as the campaign rolls on and all gravitate to Clinton? It COULD work out that way.
But it is also quite possible that Clinton has bumps along the road that don’t look too great for her either. That the economy hits a rough spot. That Trump does what he has done so well against several primary opponents and finds just the right things to say at just the right moments to put Clinton in a negative light and turn people who were on the fence against her.
Clinton may well win a Clinton/Trump matchup. In fact if I had to wager on it right now, I’d bet on Clinton winning. And there is a chance Clinton could indeed pull off a landslide after a Trump melt down. But this is not a clear and obvious result at this point. Trump could in fact pull off a win. From the current position in the polls, he only has to move things ever so slightly to get there. Clinton winning, but not in a blowout, but in a close competitive race, is actually a very likely outcome.
Folks predicting that a Trump nomination automatically means a Democratic landslide… underestimate Trump at your own peril.
He has shown time and time again over the last few months that the “conventional wisdom” can be dead wrong. He may yet implode. But this should not be taken for granted. Right now he tops the polls nationally and in all the early states for the Republican nomination. And the general election polls show him doing better than Romney did in both the electoral college and the popular vote. To be clear… not winning… but doing better than Romney did… and within reach of a win if just a few things slid his way.
Looking for a second at other Clinton vs Republican pairings, and going past the “Top 5 best polled” combinations I usually talk about to pick up Rubio and Carson, lets see which of the Republicans are currently most competitive against Clinton based on my analysis. Here are the Top 5 Republicans in terms of how they fare in the Electoral College against Clinton:
- Clinton vs Rubio: Rubio wins by 2 electoral votes
- Clinton vs Carson: Clinton wins by 2 electoral votes
- Clinton vs Trump: Clinton wins by 38 electoral votes
- Clinton vs Bush: Clinton wins by 48 electoral votes
- Clinton vs Cruz: Clinton wins by 108 electoral votes
All the other Republicans are even further behind. For comparison, Romney lost by 126 electoral votes.
Rubio actually is slightly ahead right now, but barely. He is the only Republican who can say they are leading Clinton right now.
But really Clinton vs Rubio, Carson, Trump and Bush are all in the “too close to call” category. For each of these four Republicans, the “best case”, where the Republicans pick up the states where Clinton is ahead, but by less than 5%, result in a Republican win. These races are all competitive.
Cruz? Huckabee? Paul? Christie? None of these guys are even close in head to head matches with Clinton.
Trump is not in that category. Although meltdowns are always possible, and indeed, he hasn’t even gotten the nomination yet… Clinton vs Trump certainly has a strong possibility of being a close competitive race.
Do not underestimate Trump.
334.0 days until polls start to close on Election Day 2016. Buckle your seatbelt.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. All of the charts and graphs seen here are from that site. Graphs, charts and raw data can be found there for the race nationally and in each state for every candidate combination that has been polled at the state level. In addition, comparisons of the best polled candidate combinations both nationally and each in each state are available. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for specific poll details as I add them. And like Election Graphs on Facebook!
This week on Curmudgeon’s Corner Sam and Ivan’s main topics are the San Bernardino shooting, Election 2016, and Climate Change. The show gets rounded out with smaller bits about math homework, new Apple products, political correctness, and more!
Click to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
Recorded 2015-12-03
Length this week – 1:46:28
1-Click Subscribe in iTunes
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Show Details:
- (00:00:10-00:19:12) But First
- Pi!
- Agenda
- Ivan’s Carbon Footprint
- Math Homework
- Education Reform
- (00:20:44-00:39:05) Shootings
- Deja Vu
- Do motives matter?
- What would laws do?
- High Profile Events vs Overall Murder Rates
- Reaction different if “terrorism”?
- Disgruntled Employee?
- Knee-jerk Reactions
- Framing the Problem
- Long Term vs Short Term
- Prayer Shaming
- (00:40:13-1:09:27) Election 2016
- Establishment GOP freaking out over Trump
- Would Clinton crush Trump?
- Current polling
- Candidate Odds
- Establishment still on sidelines
- Trump pastor event
- Trump and truth
- Gaming out the primaries
- (1:10:31-1:26:29) Climate Talks
- Odds of 3rd Party Run
- Nice but not enough?
- Adaptation: Poor vs Rich
- Speed of Changes
- Geoengineering
- Scale of changes
- Renewable Resources
- Long term concerns vs freedom now
- Solar Power and Personal Nukes
- (1:27:08-1:46:08) Lightning Round
- Chennai Flooding
- Mac App Store Fail
- iPad Pro
- New AppleTV
- Movie: Son of Kong (1933)
- Movie: The Peanuts Movie (2015)
- Political Correctness / Safe Zones / Free Speech
After a busy week including several days without power at Election Graphs HQ, I caught up on the 62 poll results that had been released in the last week. There were polls in eight different states (NV, IA, NH, SC, FL, CO, VA and WI) and for many different candidate combinations. With all of that though, there were only a few significant changes to the “best polled” candidate combinations that I comment on here.
Clinton vs Bush (best polled)
There were two polls for Clinton vs Bush in New Hampshire. Taken one by one, they show New Hampshire slipping back to the Clinton side of the fence for a few days, then back to a narrow Bush lead. Both taken together though, New Hampshire is in the same state as before this set of polls was included. This leaves the “expected case” at Clinton winning by 48 EV.
There was also a poll in Virginia though, and while the state was “Weak Clinton” before, and “Weak Clinton” after, Clinton’s margin increased, and improved Clinton’s “tipping point” against Bush. As a reminder, the tipping point is the margin in the state that would push the winning candidate over the edge. This can also be thought of as the amount the national polls would have to shift (assuming all states shifted uniformly) to change the winner. So it is essentially how close the race is taking into account the structure of the electoral college.
This is the first move toward Clinton in the tipping point against Bush since March. Is this a possible indication that Clinton has reached her floor and has started a rebound? Or is this just a blip, or something specific to Bush? Only more polls will tell.
Clinton vs Cruz (2nd best polled)
Since Clinton vs Cruz is just coming on to the five best polled list today, I won’t spend time looking at recent trends or changes. Instead, lets just look at where this combination sits right now:
In other words, Cruz does pretty badly against Clinton at the moment. Rubio and Bush at least are making it close. Cruz is not.
Clinton vs Rubio (7th best polled)
Speaking of Rubio, with today’s update, Clinton vs Rubio actually falls off the “five best polled combinations” list, replaced by Clinton vs Cruz. I suspect Rubio may get back on this list soon, but in the meantime, here are the changes in this last update.
After a couple weeks with Rubio’s lead in Florida over 5%, with the latest update, the average falls to Rubio +4.1%, again making Florida a “Weak Rubio” classification, meaning that while Rubio is ahead, the state is within reach for Clinton, and could easily flip.
Florida is a big state, so this has a big impact on Clinton’s best case (where she wins all the Weak Rubio states in addition to the states she is actually ahead in).
You can see the ragged lower edge of the “bubble” in the chart above. That is primarily Florida going in and out of the group of states considered possible for Clinton. For the moment, it is back in. The “expected case” is still Rubio winning by a razor thin 2 EV, but her best case is now back up to winning by 126 EV. So, Clinton strengthening?
Well, maybe, but at the same time, another poll increases Rubio’s average in Colorado, in turn improving Rubio’s tipping point against Clinton:
So, Clinton’s best case improves from winning by 68 EV to winning by 126 EV. But at the same time the tipping point moves from Rubio up by 0.1% in Colorado, to Rubio up by 2.6% in Pennsylvania. All in all this is a mixed bag of news, but on balance I’d say Rubio is better off here. So maybe don’t stock up quite yet on that Clinton recovery narrative.
Others
As usual, there are others getting lots of media attention currently that never-the-less have not yet had the sustained polling volume across a lot of close states to get on the “five best polled” according to my metric. This means looking at the results for those candidate pairs is a bit less reliable, but since there is continued interest, here are links to a few of those along with the current “expected” result for each:
351.9 days until the first general election polls start to close. A lot will change before then. Stay tuned.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. All of the charts and graphs seen here are from that site. Graphs, charts and raw data can be found there for the race nationally and in each state for every candidate combination that has been polled at the state level. In addition, comparisons of the best polled candidate combinations both nationally and each in each state are available. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for specific poll details as I add them. And like Election Graphs on Facebook!
For once this is an update with good news for Clinton! Specifically, the latest Florida poll brings the state back into reach…
Well, into reach against Bush. Bush hasn’t been having the best time of things lately. But Bush now leads Clinton by only 4.2% in our average, so we consider Florida one of those states that could go either way.
Meanwhile though, against Rubio…
With this latest poll Rubio’s lead grows to just barely over 5%, so once again we take it out of the “possible” list for Clinton.
So Clinton gains Florida as a possible pickup against Bush, but loses it agains Rubio. Is that a wash over all? Probably.
It is also worth noting though that in both of these cases the averages are very close to the 5% boundary between the actually pretty arbitrary “Weak” and “Strong” categories. It should not be surprising if the next polls just reverse today’s changes.
For the moment though:
- Clinton’s best case vs Bush improves from winning by 98 electoral votes to winning by 156 electoral votes.
- Clinton’s best case vs Rubio drops from winning by 126 electoral votes to only winning by 68 electoral votes.
The “expected” cases, where each candidate just wins the states they lead in the average, remain Clinton winning by 48 electoral votes against Bush, and losing by 2 electoral votes against Rubio.
369.1 days until the first polls start to close.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. All of the charts and graphs seen here are from that site. Graphs, charts and raw data can be found there for the race nationally and in each state for every candidate combination that has been polled at the state level. In addition, comparisons of the best polled candidate combinations both nationally and each in each state are available. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for specific poll details as I add them. And like Election Graphs on Facebook!
It may well be that Clinton bottomed out and is now strengthening daily in the Democratic primary race, but her declines have not stopped on the general election front… at least not yet. The latest batch of polling shows her continuing to weaken against Rubio, in North Carolina this time:
The trend toward Rubio has continued for over 5 months now. With this latest update, the poll average has Rubio with a 5.2% lead. That is enough for us to take North Carolina out of the list of states that could go either way, and just give it to Rubio. For the moment anyway.
Insert here the usual reminder of just how far it is until the election and how things can change quickly.
In any case, this weakens Clinton’s “best case” a bit, leaving us with this:
Clinton losing North Carolina from her “maybe” column makes this already close matchup look even closer. Right now Rubio does better against Clinton than any of the other “five best polled” candidates, and that race is neck and neck.
We haven’t looked at a map in awhile here, so a quick look at what a neck and neck race with the Republican just barely eking out a win looks like:
Looks like a lot more red than blue, but a lot of the red states have fewer electoral votes, which is of course why you have to look at the numbers, not just the map.
Going forward, the main question is does Clinton stop her slide and start showing improved performance against Rubio and the other Republicans. With Biden out and Sanders seemingly at a plateau, Clinton can concentrate her efforts on the general election. She seems to be on a roll the last few weeks, turning around her primary poll numbers and for the first time in many months getting a lot of positive press. The unforced self-inflicted errors have not been present for a little while. This has done what it needed to amongst Democrats. I suspect that if Clinton doesn’t do anything to damage herself, and the Republicans continue as they are, we will indeed start to see some of the states that have moved away from Clinton over the past few months start drifting back.
As usual though, actual events may vary.
376.1 days until the general election polls start to close. Stay tuned.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. All of the charts and graphs seen here are from that site. Graphs, charts and raw data can be found there for the race nationally and in each state for every candidate combination that has been polled at the state level. In addition, comparisons of the best polled candidate combinations both nationally and each in each state are available. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for specific poll details as I add them. And like Election Graphs on Facebook!
This week on the Curmudgeon’s Corner podcast Ivan and Sam’s big topics are the Presidential race, the goings on in Congress, and Ivan’s musings on tech while attending Oracle OpenWorld. That gets you everything from the Benghazi hearing to the appeal of Carson to Speaker Ryan, the Budget Deal, and even Twitter and Hadoop. But it all starts with a bit on San Fransisco, and Sam breaking his foot. Fun!
Click to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
Recorded 2015-10-28
Length this week – 1:53:06
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Show Details:
- (0:00:10-0:25:41) But First
- Agenda
- San Fransisco
- Sam broke his foot
- (0:26:20-0:48:45) Election 2016
- Future Sam on Republican Debate
- Ivan touches things
- Democratic Polls
- Clinton Benghazi Hearing
- Clinton turnaround
- Clinton vs the Republicans
- Trump losing… to Carson?
- The appeal of Trump and Carson
- Bush concentrating on Rubio
- The other Republicans
- (0:59:33-1:19:56) Congress
- Speaker Ryan
- Budget Deal
- CISA Passes Senate
- Politicians and Tech
- One more Carson thing
- (1:21:00-1:52:46) Tech Update
- Oracle OpenWorld
- What is Hadoop?
- Rise of the cloud
- Speed of Innovation
- Tech Company Earnings
- Apple
- Twitter
- Native Advertising
- Taking Companies Private or non-Profit
- Book: The Scarlet Plague
On this week’s Curmudgeon’s Corner we apologize for last week’s show, then jump right in on Election 2016 analysis. We cover Biden’s exit and the results of last week’s debate, and what all that means for Clinton. Then we move on to the Republicans, talking about Trump’s staying power, how the only one close to him is Carson of all people, and how Bush is crashing and burning. With the Presidential race out of the way, we spend some time on Paul Ryan and the race for Speaker. Then finally in our lightning round we hit Back to the Future Day, iPads and iPhones, the hospital bombing in Afghanistan, book and movie reviews, and more!
Click to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
Recorded 2015-10-22
Length this week – 1:32:48
1-Click Subscribe in iTunes
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Show Details:
- (0:00:10-0:09:08) But First
- Sounds Ivan makes
- Allergy Meds
- Making fun of Ivan falling asleep
- Forced Break
- Future Debates
- Agenda
- (0:10:09-0:21:49) The Democrats
- Biden Out
- Debate Results
- Clinton’s Position
- Sad for Joe
- (0:22: 53-0:56:17) The Republicans
- Debate Demands
- Trump not going away
- Trump vs Bush
- Efforts to stop Trump
- Trump in the general?
- Thinning the crowd
- The Republican Split
- (0:56:56-1:11:18) Speaker of the House
- Future Sam Disclaimer
- Ryan’s Conditions
- Ryan’s Options
- Ryan the RINO
- Weakened Ryan?
- (1:12:07-1:32:28) Lightning Round
- Back to the Future Day
- iPad vs big iPhone
- Car bluetooth issue
- US hospital bombing
- Apple Music Subscriber Numbers
- Movie: Mud
- Book: The Son Also Rises
As I mentioned yesterday, Christie is seemingly still in the Republican race. There hadn’t been any state level polls that included him since August, but then yesterday there was one in Virginia that improved his position against Clinton. And now in today’s update we have another poll that included him, this time PPP in Pennsylvania, and once again the result is an improvement in Christie’s position vs Clinton.
This makes Pennsylvania a possible pickup for Christie and thus improves his “best case” scenario even further.
I snarked yesterday about how Christie’s best case was to lose by 70 electoral votes. Well, now his best case is to lose by 30 electoral votes. So he actually is getting a lot closer to being in reach. Of course I also made fun of his 1.9% in the RCP average of national Republican polls… oops, it is 1.7% now.
Clinton vs Christie is still the 5th “best polled” candidate combination according to the metric I use, but I expect that will probably change before too long as we continue to get more and more polls including Trump, Carson, Fiorina and Cruz, with fewer including Christie. Not to mention more with Sanders and Biden. They all seem to have gotten more polling action lately, but not yet enough to bring them into the “top five” I talk about here. There are still significant gaps in close state polling for those candidates, but those are gradually being filled in.
To briefly illustrate why I don’t talk about all the candidate combinations here, the new polling in Pennsylvania from PPP yesterday actually resulted in all of these changes:
Those are all tweets from @ElecCollPolls. That account tweets each and every electoral college related change on ElectionGraphs.com, including each individual poll result as it is added. If you are interested in that level of detail, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter.
But be careful interpreting what you see beyond the five best polled combinations I highlight here. There is often still very sparse polling, certainly when compared with the top five, and the averages still rely quite a lot on previous general election results, so it may or may not yet be giving a good picture of where things really stand for that candidate pair. You can still get some insight of course, you just have to be careful.
Here on the blog, I concentrate on the candidate pairs with the most robust polling, and on the changes that impact the range of possible results for those candidates. These “top five” candidate pairs are really where the amount of data available is best and where I can feel the most confident drawing conclusions from the data… and even then you sometimes have to be careful reading too much into things.
After all, it is still 389.1 days until polls start to close. Things will change a lot in those days. Which is why tracking this is fun. Keep watching.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. All of the charts and graphs seen here are from that site. Graphs, charts and raw data can be found there for the race nationally and in each state for every candidate combination that has been polled at the state level. In addition, comparisons of the best polled candidate combinations both nationally and each in each state are available. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for specific poll details as I add them. And like Election Graphs on Facebook!
On the Curmudgeon’s Corner podcast this week, Ivan struggles to stay awake while he and Sam record their commentary track for the first Democratic debate. Listen to our thoughts on Clinton, Sanders, O’Malley, Webb and Chafee’s performances as they answer questions on the issues of the day. And listen to Ivan doze off and snore! Several times! Ah yes, this debate was obviously the most exciting and engaging yet!
Click to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
Recorded 2015-10-14
Length this week – 2:21:53
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Show Details:
- (0:00:10-1:01:17) Debate Segment I
- Intro by Sam and Ivan
- Candidate Self-Intros
- Biggest weaknesses
- Gun Control
- Ivan Falls Asleep
- Russia and Syria
- Use of Force
- Greatest Threats
- Ivan’s Solution to Allergies
- (1:01:55-1:48:22) Debate Segment II
- Clinton Email Scandal
- Race Relations
- Middle Class and Wall Street
- College Costs and Social Security
- Immigration
- Patriot Act
- Ivan Falls Asleep Again
- Snowden
- Differences from Obama
- (1:49:10-2:05:31) Debate Segment III
- Insider vs Outsider
- Climate Change
- Family Leave
- Marijuana
- Ivan Falls Asleep a Third Time
- Working with Republicans
- (2:06:16-2:21:33) Debate Segment IV
- Enemies to be proud of
- Closing Statements
- Ivan Falls Asleep a Fourth Time
- Ivan and Sam wrap it up
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