That’s a fair point and it should be taken into account. But at the same time, this is Nate Silver. He’s essentially the pre-eminent expert on polling, polling errors, and best practices in that regard. And what’s more; when you imagine the different potential political factions amongst the African American community (a practice Dems try not to do); it’s not hard to see why 2016 to today could have soured them significantly. Some examples from my family, friends, and extended family:
As much as Republicans aren’t great on “black issues” under Trump Black Labor saw unprecedented gains in employment and income (until COVID hit). And a cohort of black voters are economic voters first.
The “vaccine mandate” talk from the left didn’t go over well in Southern Communities where the oldest (like my grandparents) remember. And Oftentimes knew people that were part of things like Tuskegee (which was also one of many experiments like this. It’s just that the exceptional journalistic work and integrity of several academics and journalists brought this one instance to light).
Student Loan debt affects people from lower and middle-class families a lot. The promise and almost delivery of student loan relief and then the total rug pull of it and sellout of the Biden Administration towards it soured lots of people.
It’s not like Africans don’t know what Alzheimer’s is. And Biden’s refusal to even address the concerns impact black voters as much as they do whites.
For the BLM cohort; running the guy who designed and championed the three strikes policy that has put so many blacks in jail for life unnecessarily and then running a prosecutor who knowingly tried to keep innocent black people in jail to maintain appearances doesn’t sit right. Especially when the other guy made it a habit to pardon wrongly or likely wrongly convicted men and women of color and did so at an exceptional clip.
Inflation is super high and FED interest rates are 59 times higher than they were when Biden was elected. For “low information” voters that’s just Biden’s fault. But even for “high information” voters they realize that Trump was willing to bully the FED to keep those numbers down. “Stagflation” killed Carter it can kill Biden too.
It’s really not at all surprising that the current Dem ticket isn’t going to win black voters at 90% clips.
He’s essentially the pre-eminent expert on polling, polling errors, and best practices in that regard.
i would not call Silver this anymore; he’s an increasingly partisan libertarian with weird hangups and a stick up his ass about things he wishes he understood (like COVID-19), and it’s almost assuredly part of why he’s out of a job at 538. he’s also increasingly being lapped by people like G. Elliott Morris and an armada of Twitter-based election analysts and prognosticators. at the bare minimum he’s absolutely not the only guy in town on this, and some of the people i just described like Adam Carlson actively dispute he’s even using the data in this article correctly because they’re the ones who made it. he’s also being challenged on his points here by professors like Matt Blackwell, specific polls of Black voters and data about minority youth voters. in general: the case is not nearly as clear-cut as he makes it seem and deferring to him on this would be a bad case in which to do it, because he’s probably wrong.
Only time will tell, but I remember when the same sort of claims were made about him calling the 2016 race a toss up. Although it does look like I have some links to read.
Silver was correctly giving better odds of Trump winning than basically any other prognosticator in 2016, but i think even he would agree with the point that past success is not strictly indicative of future results. that he got 2016 correct does not mean his analysis today will hold up well (and indeed there are a few reasons to think he is a worse, more partisan, more rigid-in-approach-and-analysis prognosticator now than he was in 2016, some of which i touched on here).
circumstances have also changed, in any case: polling is struggling to methodologically keep up and capture representative samples in a way they simply wasn’t true in 2016. we saw subsample results like what we’re seeing now in a few 2022 state-level polls and they were wrong then, and additionally no elections have yet convincingly or reliably demonstrated the kinds of shifts being implied currently. even discounting special elections, it seems very clear for example that Republicans did not get 20% of the black vote in Virginia in 2023 based on their House of Delegates results. by far the most compelling argument i’ve seen that accepts current polling data at face and not as error is the argument by Nate Cohn that Democratic weakness is among non-voters–but that obviously invites the question of: why should we assume these people will vote in 2024?
Student Loan debt affects people from lower and middle-class families a lot. The promise and almost delivery of student loan relief and then the total rug pull of it and sellout of the Biden Administration towards it soured lots of people…
-he is old (which, yeah, obviously), and the media (both sides) does nothing but talk about how Biden is old. - but starting with the State of the Union, he is showing that he is mentally still there, and plenty capable of holding office.
-The media just loves Trump. he gets views, so they won’t stop talking about him. They don’t give Trump the same kind of scrutiny they do any other politician.
-Biden has a Gaza problem - if Gaza wasn’t an active issue, he’d probably be doing a lot better. He has spent so long ensuring Israel receives the support it needs to continue to exist in the middle east, and they have a place after the Holocaust, that he just can’t adjust to the horrible crimes their government are committing. I understand he will never not supply their Iron Dome and other defensive measures, but that doesn’t mean he cant restrict Israeli weapon sales to just that.
-he doesn’t talk about his accomplishments in office, and the media doesn’t cover it, so the general populace doesn’t think he has done anything. He has done plenty - in the general election campaign, they are starting to advertise these things.
People still don’t know that he continued backing Rail workers helped get them a deal, they just remember he kept the supply chain open.
Many student loans have been forgiven. He can’t do forgiveness as broadly as he’d like, the GOP is fighting him on that, but he continues to fight for it and is getting more. My own mother is in her 60s and has another 10+ years on her student loan - but I am hopeful his student loan forgiveness will reach her - she has applied and right now it is just a waiting game (information over the past year has been very confusing regarding what to do and when).
I only ever hear the media talking about the negative aspects of Biden, so of course he is going to lose supporters. I just happen to follow political news more closely than the average person, so I am aware of the positive things he has done as well. Hopefully he gets the message out; Trump was awful, but he isn’t losing support - people staying home and skipping this vote because Biden isn’t ideal, is how we get Trump back in office.
Many student loans have been forgiven. He can’t do forgiveness as broadly as he’d like, the GOP is fighting him on that, but he continues to fight for it and is getting more. My own mother is in her 60s and has another 10+ years on her student loan - but I am hopeful his student loan forgiveness will reach her - she has applied and right now it is just a waiting game (information over the past year has been very confusing regarding what to do and when).
Biden negotiated away his ability to suspend student loan payments to get a temporary budget passed. He didn’t have to do that. He could have kept payments suspended until the forgiveness hit. He chose not to prioritize it.
The reply I responded to was about student debt forgiveness. Forgiveness does not equal payment suspension.
Yes, his post was threaded a couple down from yours, but neither my post, nor the post I responded to mentioned payment suspension. Your reply should probably be up a post or two.
Trump and republicans of course want the people to pay every penny, plus interest of student debt. Biden kept loan payment suspensions up for years, which is far longer than I expected. Biden is getting debt forgiveness to the people, and a large number of them, and it is making a difference. I don’t think anyone thought he would accomplish a fraction of what he has gotten done; I can only imagine what he can get done if people give the Dems a majority in the Senate and House.
With the republicans trying to shutdown the government for their political circus, Biden has done a good job of picking his battles, and making them look like fools. It’s clear the current Republican party is incapable of governing.
That was OP both you and I have been commenting with. To be fair, OP used the phrase “loan relief”, nevertheless “total rug pull” is clearly untrue and OP did not acknowledge it as hyperbole.
What OP ought to understand is that Biden didn’t bargain it away to appease Mickey Mouse, he was appeasing Republicans who were holding the budget to ransom (yet again) as you pointed out.
Or maybe OP isn’t discussing in good faith to start with? Maybe “this is what my friends say” is really just cover for an attempt to spread misinformation?
It’s odd to me that the reasoning given here and in the article for this problem for the Democrats is that they aren’t acting Republican enough and they are too leftist. It is so clear that the Democrats have managed to do very few of the things they say, and what they do accomplish is either just what Republicans would do, or hamstrung by the Republicans and media blitzed. That’s why they lose ground. Becoming Republican will also lose them different ground. It doesn’t feel like the data should need an explanation in the first paragraph like that, it skews the interpretation of what is pitched as objective.
I think all these economic and business interests are just desperate for the old Republican party back and are trying to sculpt the Democrats into it because they were close enough already. Probably successfully. It’s pretty bleak all around.
Also I’m sorry I can’t leave it, but are you saying that the BLM “cohort” prefer trump in there? I’m not going to say that anyone is enthusiastic about Biden, but Trump encouraged beat downs across the country and threatened to march the military on these folks. (Would have done it too if it weren’t for the woke liberal adjenda of General Mark Milley).
It’s odd to me that the reasoning given here and in the article for this problem for the Democrats is that they aren’t acting Republican enough and they are too leftist.
For the most part the average Black voter doesn’t identify as Liberal. And that makes sense when you think about it. The median Black voter is a rural or suburban 50+ year old who left the Republican Party because they endorsed the Southern Strategy, not because of conservative policy support. So being “more leftist” isn’t really going to win more of the black vote. They’re already winning the black vote that cares about “leftist” policies.
Also I’m sorry I can’t leave it, but are you saying that the BLM “cohort” prefer trump in there? I’m not going to say that anyone is enthusiastic about Biden, but Trump encouraged beat downs across the country and threatened to march the military on these folks.
Added a highlight for the important part. The BLM cohort is not likely to vote for Trump this election. But they’re also not likely to be energized to vote for Biden. And history shows us that unenthusiastic support leads to low turnout. And part of why they’re so unenthusiastic is that the Dems ran the “Anti-BLM” ticket with Biden/Harris.
That’s a fair point and it should be taken into account. But at the same time, this is Nate Silver. He’s essentially the pre-eminent expert on polling, polling errors, and best practices in that regard. And what’s more; when you imagine the different potential political factions amongst the African American community (a practice Dems try not to do); it’s not hard to see why 2016 to today could have soured them significantly. Some examples from my family, friends, and extended family:
It’s really not at all surprising that the current Dem ticket isn’t going to win black voters at 90% clips.
i would not call Silver this anymore; he’s an increasingly partisan libertarian with weird hangups and a stick up his ass about things he wishes he understood (like COVID-19), and it’s almost assuredly part of why he’s out of a job at 538. he’s also increasingly being lapped by people like G. Elliott Morris and an armada of Twitter-based election analysts and prognosticators. at the bare minimum he’s absolutely not the only guy in town on this, and some of the people i just described like Adam Carlson actively dispute he’s even using the data in this article correctly because they’re the ones who made it. he’s also being challenged on his points here by professors like Matt Blackwell, specific polls of Black voters and data about minority youth voters. in general: the case is not nearly as clear-cut as he makes it seem and deferring to him on this would be a bad case in which to do it, because he’s probably wrong.
Only time will tell, but I remember when the same sort of claims were made about him calling the 2016 race a toss up. Although it does look like I have some links to read.
Silver was correctly giving better odds of Trump winning than basically any other prognosticator in 2016, but i think even he would agree with the point that past success is not strictly indicative of future results. that he got 2016 correct does not mean his analysis today will hold up well (and indeed there are a few reasons to think he is a worse, more partisan, more rigid-in-approach-and-analysis prognosticator now than he was in 2016, some of which i touched on here).
circumstances have also changed, in any case: polling is struggling to methodologically keep up and capture representative samples in a way they simply wasn’t true in 2016. we saw subsample results like what we’re seeing now in a few 2022 state-level polls and they were wrong then, and additionally no elections have yet convincingly or reliably demonstrated the kinds of shifts being implied currently. even discounting special elections, it seems very clear for example that Republicans did not get 20% of the black vote in Virginia in 2023 based on their House of Delegates results. by far the most compelling argument i’ve seen that accepts current polling data at face and not as error is the argument by Nate Cohn that Democratic weakness is among non-voters–but that obviously invites the question of: why should we assume these people will vote in 2024?
Almost delivery? Total rug pull?
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/02/21/fact-sheet-president-biden-cancels-student-debt-for-more-than-150000-student-loan-borrowers-ahead-of-schedule/
Biden’s biggest problems are:
-he is old (which, yeah, obviously), and the media (both sides) does nothing but talk about how Biden is old. - but starting with the State of the Union, he is showing that he is mentally still there, and plenty capable of holding office.
-The media just loves Trump. he gets views, so they won’t stop talking about him. They don’t give Trump the same kind of scrutiny they do any other politician.
-Biden has a Gaza problem - if Gaza wasn’t an active issue, he’d probably be doing a lot better. He has spent so long ensuring Israel receives the support it needs to continue to exist in the middle east, and they have a place after the Holocaust, that he just can’t adjust to the horrible crimes their government are committing. I understand he will never not supply their Iron Dome and other defensive measures, but that doesn’t mean he cant restrict Israeli weapon sales to just that.
-he doesn’t talk about his accomplishments in office, and the media doesn’t cover it, so the general populace doesn’t think he has done anything. He has done plenty - in the general election campaign, they are starting to advertise these things.
People still don’t know that he continued backing Rail workers helped get them a deal, they just remember he kept the supply chain open.
Many student loans have been forgiven. He can’t do forgiveness as broadly as he’d like, the GOP is fighting him on that, but he continues to fight for it and is getting more. My own mother is in her 60s and has another 10+ years on her student loan - but I am hopeful his student loan forgiveness will reach her - she has applied and right now it is just a waiting game (information over the past year has been very confusing regarding what to do and when).
I only ever hear the media talking about the negative aspects of Biden, so of course he is going to lose supporters. I just happen to follow political news more closely than the average person, so I am aware of the positive things he has done as well. Hopefully he gets the message out; Trump was awful, but he isn’t losing support - people staying home and skipping this vote because Biden isn’t ideal, is how we get Trump back in office.
Biden negotiated away his ability to suspend student loan payments to get a temporary budget passed. He didn’t have to do that. He could have kept payments suspended until the forgiveness hit. He chose not to prioritize it.
We are talking about two very different things.
The reply I responded to was about student debt forgiveness. Forgiveness does not equal payment suspension.
Yes, his post was threaded a couple down from yours, but neither my post, nor the post I responded to mentioned payment suspension. Your reply should probably be up a post or two.
Trump and republicans of course want the people to pay every penny, plus interest of student debt. Biden kept loan payment suspensions up for years, which is far longer than I expected. Biden is getting debt forgiveness to the people, and a large number of them, and it is making a difference. I don’t think anyone thought he would accomplish a fraction of what he has gotten done; I can only imagine what he can get done if people give the Dems a majority in the Senate and House.
With the republicans trying to shutdown the government for their political circus, Biden has done a good job of picking his battles, and making them look like fools. It’s clear the current Republican party is incapable of governing.
That was OP both you and I have been commenting with. To be fair, OP used the phrase “loan relief”, nevertheless “total rug pull” is clearly untrue and OP did not acknowledge it as hyperbole.
What OP ought to understand is that Biden didn’t bargain it away to appease Mickey Mouse, he was appeasing Republicans who were holding the budget to ransom (yet again) as you pointed out.
Or maybe OP isn’t discussing in good faith to start with? Maybe “this is what my friends say” is really just cover for an attempt to spread misinformation?
It’s odd to me that the reasoning given here and in the article for this problem for the Democrats is that they aren’t acting Republican enough and they are too leftist. It is so clear that the Democrats have managed to do very few of the things they say, and what they do accomplish is either just what Republicans would do, or hamstrung by the Republicans and media blitzed. That’s why they lose ground. Becoming Republican will also lose them different ground. It doesn’t feel like the data should need an explanation in the first paragraph like that, it skews the interpretation of what is pitched as objective.
I think all these economic and business interests are just desperate for the old Republican party back and are trying to sculpt the Democrats into it because they were close enough already. Probably successfully. It’s pretty bleak all around.
Also I’m sorry I can’t leave it, but are you saying that the BLM “cohort” prefer trump in there? I’m not going to say that anyone is enthusiastic about Biden, but Trump encouraged beat downs across the country and threatened to march the military on these folks. (Would have done it too if it weren’t for the woke liberal adjenda of General Mark Milley).
For the most part the average Black voter doesn’t identify as Liberal. And that makes sense when you think about it. The median Black voter is a rural or suburban 50+ year old who left the Republican Party because they endorsed the Southern Strategy, not because of conservative policy support. So being “more leftist” isn’t really going to win more of the black vote. They’re already winning the black vote that cares about “leftist” policies.
Added a highlight for the important part. The BLM cohort is not likely to vote for Trump this election. But they’re also not likely to be energized to vote for Biden. And history shows us that unenthusiastic support leads to low turnout. And part of why they’re so unenthusiastic is that the Dems ran the “Anti-BLM” ticket with Biden/Harris.