Mid-September Election Update

 EDIT: shortly after this was posted a slew of new data came out invalidating much of what I posted. This will be updated to reflect the new data. My apologies for posting on a Monday when all the new data comes in.

 So, let's get right into it.

Presidential Election

2 way race: Biden + 7.0%

4 way race: Biden +5.8%

Biden does seem to lose around 1.5% when third parties are introduced. He is still pretty far ahead. Unfortunately, most battleground polls are still 2 way, so I can't see the impact on a state level. 

States	Winner/Margin	Z score	% Biden Win	% Trump Win	Electoral Votes if Biden Wins	Electoral Votes if Trump Wins
Minnesota	Biden +8.8%	-2.20	99%	1%	222	326
Wisconsin	Biden +6.8%	-1.70	96%	4%	232	316
Nevada	Biden +6.0%	-1.50	93%	7%	238	306
New Hampshire	Biden +5.5%	-1.38	92%	8%	242	300
Arizona	Biden +4.7%	-1.18	88%	12%	253	296
Pennsylvania	Biden +4.3%	-1.08	86%	14%	273	285
Michigan	Biden +4.2%	-1.05	85%	15%	289	265
Ohio	Biden +2.4%	-0.60	73%	27%	307	249
Florida	Biden +1.6%	-0.40	66%	34%	336	231
Maine CD2	Biden +1.0%	-0.25	60%	40%	337	202
North Carolina	Biden +0.7%	-0.18	57%	43%	352	201
Nebraska CD2	Unknown (0.0%)	0.00	50%	50%	353	186
Georgia	Trump +1.3%	+0.33	37%	63%	369	185
Iowa	Trump 1.7%	+0.43	33%	67%	375	169
Texas	Trump +3.5%	+0.88	19%	81%	413	163
Missouri	Trump +8.0%	+2.00	2%	98%	423	125

Right now keystone state is the key to the election. Assuming polling is accurate and performance across states is going to be correlated, Trump needs to gain 4.3 points to win the election. That gives Biden an 86% chance and Trump a 14% chance.

If I assume third parties take away 1.2 points, that brings the margins down to 3.0, which would still mean that Biden has a 77% chance of victory, with Trump having a 23% chance.

 I found some shifts interesting but some unsurprising. The rust belt rebounded after a dip that gave me 2016 Vietnam war flashbacks, although Pennsylvania still seems to be trending a bit red compared to where it was. Florida dropped almost to a toss up, which is surprising given it was up 5 points not long ago. Arizona on the other hand, which is normally a red leaning swing state, is now very blue. North Carolina is still being the least predictable state other than Florida. 

Now, to recap, as this might be important to readers. I'm assuming the electoral outcomes exist on a normal bell curve, and I'm assuming a margin of error of 4 points in reading the polling results. it varies in practice, but I feel like this is the "safe" assumption to take as most margin of errors in polls vary between 2 and 5 points. If I went with 3, I could be assuming states are more safe than they are, and I'd rather take the side of caution and lowball various states' chances if I have to err one way or another. That gives us an 8 point margin being accurate within about 96%. 68% of probable outcomes will be within 4 points, and 96% within 8. The reason, I give, for example, New Hampshire, with an exact 8 point margin, 98%, is because if Biden is actually up, say, 17%, being 9 points off in that direction, that doesn't change the outcome, Biden wins. For Trump to win, the polling error would have to swing 9 points toward him, causing him to win by 1%. There's only a 2% chance of doing that. 

Now, we saw massive shifts in 2016 toward Trump. Wisconsin was up 6.5% in the polls and it went toward Trump. There was only a 6% chance of that. But then we saw outcomes like that all over the rust belt and midwest. It's possible the polls were wrong, or more likely, in my opinion, the polls just didn't detect how fast public opinion shifted leading up to the election. So just because I'm saying that Biden is winning states by 80%, 90%, 95%, etc, doesn't mean that a similar shift can't happen. It's just going to be unlikely. 

I just wanted to remind people of that since people might be wondering how I figure this out. 

Now, onto the congressional races:

Senate

There's 46 safe seats on both sides, so the battle is over 8 particular seats. Each side needs 4 for a tie or 5 to win control of the senate

States	Winner/Margin	SD	% DEM Win	% GOP Win	Senate seats if DEMs win	Senate seats if GOP wins
Minnesota	Smith (D) +7.6%	-1.90	97%	3%	47	54
Maine	Gideon (D) +4.5%	-1.13	87%	13%	48	53
North Carolina	Cunningham (D) +3.6%	-0.90	82%	18%	49	52
Michigan	Peters (D) +3.5%	-0.88	81%	19%	50	51
Iowa	Greenfield (D) +0.3%	-0.08	53%	47%	51	50
Montana	Daines (R) +2.0%	+0.50	31%	69%	52	49
Georgia	Perdue (R) +4.3%	+1.08	14%	86%	53	48
South Carolina	Graham (R) +8.0%	+2.00	2%	98%	54	47

The senate looks like it favors democrats. Four seats lean heavily democratic, three lean republican, and one is a toss up. Ultimately, it looks like the GOP only has a 19% shot to actually control the senate outright. The democrats on the other hand, have a 53% chance to control it outright if they win in Iowa. That means there's roughly a 28% chance of a split senate, which puts actual effective control up to who wins the presidency. 

House

I'm going to be honest, there's little to no polling data on specific house seats, this is going to be a really crappy barebones forecast, but I'll lay out the house this way:

The democrats have 214 safe seats, and the GOP has 190. There are 31 toss ups. A party needs 218 seats to control the house. That said the democrats only need 4 seats to win, and the GOP needs 28. 

I'm just going to call it for the democrats here. For reference, the democrats only need to win 13% of the seats up for grabs, and the GOP needs to win 90%. Unless a miracle or statistical anomaly happens, the chance of democratic control is very high.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this forecast. I'll likely do another one in a few more weeks.

2020 election predictions: post convention special

So, with the democratic and republican conventions concluded the race looks much different than it did a few weeks ago, in a fairly disconcerting way. Long story short, the republicans are making a lot of gains and Biden is falling apart. Since COVID began, Biden has had this thing almost locked. He has been consistently ahead by 6-10 points, and that has all changed recently. Trump is gaining a lot of ground in the rust belt, much like in 2016 in the last days of the election, and it's a lot closer and competitive now. What I will be doing here is getting a handle on how much. 

 Safe electoral votes: Trump - 115, Biden - 212

The race has not changed at all in terms of what states are safe and swing. It has only changed among the states up for grabs. Now we will look at how much things have changed.

 

States	Winner/Margin	SD	% Biden Win	% Trump Win	Electoral Votes if Biden Wins	Electoral Votes if Trump Wins
New Hampshire	Biden +9.7%	-2.43	99.25%	0.75%	216	326
Minnesota	Biden +5.3%	-1.33	90.82%	9.18%	226	322
Pennsylvania	Biden +4.7%	-1.18	88.10%	11.90%	246	312
Nevada	Biden +4.0%	-1.00	84.13%	15.87%	252	292
Florida	Biden +3.7%	-0.93	82.38%	17.62%	281	286
Wisconsin	Biden +3.5%	-0.88	81.06%	18.94%	291	257
Michigan	Biden +2.6%	-0.65	74.22%	25.78%	307	247
Ohio	Biden +2.3%	-0.58	71.90%	28.10%	325	231
Arizona	Biden +2.2%	-0.55	70.88%	29.12%	336	213
Maine CD2	Unknown (0.0%)	0.00	50.00%	50.00%	337	202
Nebraska CD2	Unknown (0.0%)	0.00	50.00%	50.00%	338	201
North Carolina	Trump +0.3%	+0.08	46.81%	53.19%	353	200
Georgia	Trump +1.1%	+0.28	38.97%	61.03%	369	185
Iowa	Trump 1.7%	+0.43	33.36%	66.64%	375	169
Texas	Trump +3.5%	+0.88	18.94%	81.06%	413	163
Missouri	Trump +6.4%	+1.60	5.48%	94.52%	423	125

Yikes. Biden's margins have dropped significantly in the rust belt, including Minnesota and Pennsylvania, and in Florida. I keep saying it, despite the sun belt strategy the democrats are trying, which might be successful long term, the rust belt is the crucial area for the democrats to defend. That, along with Florida, the current tipping point, are the states the democrats really need to work at defending. If Trump can break through there, he can win. And given the margins are currently around 2-5 points in these locations, if the polls are off by a couple of points like they were in 2016, Trump can get it. Say I reduced the tipping point margin of Florida by 3 points, that brings the margin of victory for Biden down to less than 1 point, which translates to around a 55% chance for Biden and a 45% chance for Hillary. That isn't good. That's literally almost the same odds I gave HRC on election day and look at how that turned out.

Now, assuming polls are accurate, I'm more inclined to give Trump an 18% chance of victory, while Biden has an 82% chance, but that really does assume polling is accurate, and of course these projections are snapshots in time, given the election were held today. If polling isn't accurate, like in 2016 where it did not properly detect the full extent of the movement toward Trump, I could be overestimating Biden's chances here. That said it is possible for Biden to screw this up just like Hillary did, and a second term for Trump is possible. I still given the edge to Biden, but how much of an edge he really has is anyone's guess. If Biden's numbers keep tanking, he's done. For numbers to shift that drastically in only a few days is not a good sign for Biden. Biden is not invincible. If you want Trump out and aren't taking a principled stand against the democrats, you better vote. That's all I'm gonna say. Don't get complacent.

How I view the 2020 election and how I plan to vote

 So, with the recent conventions concluded, I feel like it's a good time I lay it out there how I feel about 2020. As you know, I Bernie or Busted in 2016 and voted for Jill Stein. Long story short, I don't really feel much differently toward 2020. I plan on voting for Howie Hawkins, and am outright endorsing him right here and now. He has a much stronger platform than Jill Stein did, and one that has a lot more thought put behind it, and I kind of believe Howie is as close to an ideal candidate as we're going to get. He hits all of the major notes for me. Universal basic income, Medicare for all, a solid climate change policy, etc. He's significantly stronger platform wise than both Biden and Trump. 

Now that we got that out of the way, let's focus more on Biden and Trump. Biden is basically just another Hillary. In the democratic primary, as I outlined in my previous post, there was some screwery going on there too. The party clearly worked behind the scenes to support Biden, despite him floundering in early states, and they got everyone else to drop out so he faced Bernie practically one on one. This caused a repeat of 2016 to happen in which Bernie lost by significant margins. The fact is, if there was no interference from parties within the democratic party, it's highly likely the primary would have been much more drawn out, with Bernie walking away with a lot more wins, while the electorate would have been much more divided between Buttigieg, Biden, and Klobuchar. But, because the democratic party isnt the republican party and the democrats like to nudge things along in their direction, they "saved" the party, as they would put it, from Bernie.

Then the centrist camp got a massive mandate to ignore progressives. While there were some so called unity task forces and mild policy concessions on topics like healthcare and education, they quite frankly didn't go far enough. Most concessions we got were mild window dressings while the large concessions were always off the table. Combined with COVID-19 accelerating the need for things like medicare for all and even UBI, this has proved to be extremely milquetoast and out of touch.

The real slap in the face though has come in the past two weeks though. With the DNC ramping up and the democratic party shifting to the general, they've all but thrown progressives overboard. The democratic convention, to me, felt like a republican convention if the republicans were sane. They virtue signalled nonstop about how great America was, they let literally MULTIPLE republicans speak at the convention, with them assuring "don't worry, Biden won't go that far left, he likes to work with republicans", and the appeals to the left felt hollow. Bernie and Yang's speeches, some of the best, seemed empty and hollow, because let's face it, they were selling a turd and their rhetoric completely contradicted the overall feel of the convention. Michelle Obama went so far to voter shame third party voters, and that didn't resonate at all. All in all, it seems quite clear that the democratic party essentially plans to abandon the left and appeal hard to the center. Some, like Rahm Emanuel, are talking about abandoning policy positions like Medicare for all and the green new deal to win over these new republicans friends. These guys don't care about actual solutions to problems, and would rather turn us into what the republican party used to be than be the champion of the people.

The republican convention, on the flip side, was a complete disaster though. The republicans had a lot more energy, sometimes too much energy, with Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend being accused of using drugs during their extremely animated speeches. The entire affair was just one lie and strawman after another, with constant accusations that Biden is a socialist who is being controlled by Bernie (I wish), and lies about how great Trump is and how well he's handling COVID and the economy.

He's not. Trump's handling of the issues of our time has been horrible. Trump has regularly ignored the virus, ignored the scientists, and insisted it would "just go away."Well, here we are 170,000 deaths later and Trump is freaking wrong. Trump's meal ticket is the economy and he has tried to force stuff to open all year, only for it to backfire and lead to massive spikes in covid cases whenever he does. He doesn't care who dies, as long as he can come out looking like a hero in the end, and even if he created the problem in the first place. 

But at the same time, his convention was animated, and had a lot of energy and enthusiasm the democrats simply lacked. And now Biden's poll numbers are dropping in swing states. I have yet to recalculate Biden's current chances, but this goes to show that despite my 95% prediction a few weeks ago, Trump can easily win this. All Biden has to do is lose enthusiasm, and Trump to gain support, and it's over. He's releected. 

Now, some people will wonder, well, I'm voting third party, shouldn't I suck it up and vote Biden out of harm reduction? You know, I've thought a lot about this this year, especially due to COVID. I mean, most of Trump's damage has been overstated up to now but this year has been a massive disaster with the worst effects having able to been avoided. I totally get the harm reduction argument and I totally get why some may want to vote for Biden just to get this idiot out. And you know what? If you want to vote for Biden, go ahead. I see no shame in it.

As for me though? I'm still focused on the long game. Look, as I've been saying since 2016, America is heading toward a realignment. And how the next few elections go will ultimately affect the fate of the nation. As it stands, with the democrats' current strategy, they're basically trying to bring the sane parts of the GOP into the party at the left's expense. The problem with this is that if they are successful, that's your realignment. The democratic party is now a right wing party. There will be no progressive policies. No medicare for all, no basic income, no green new deal. it's neoliberal centrist capitalism from them for the next 40 years. And they have the electoral path. I talked about the whole "sun belt" strategy and think it could work. They would abandon their "blue wall" as Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and perhaps even Minnesota and Pennsylvania turn red, and as the working class there is forgotten, and their future will be found in a combination of minority and white suburban moderate populations in the south and in already blue states. They will essentially trade Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania,for Texas, Georgia, and Arizona, and in house races focus less on winning rust belt cities like where I'm from, which are economic deadzones, and more on winning places like Orange county California, as well as Dallas, Atlanta, and Phoenix suburbs. It could work, but I fear this would be devastating for the future of the country.

As for the republicans? Well, they're basically going full on fascist if Trump is any indication. They will turn to populism and empty rhetoric about the economy and jobs, but in reality be offering the same old trickle down economics. But you know what? Because people are swayed by words and enthusiasm and not policy, it will work. The democrats will regularly fall flat on their faces in off years as their gains in the sun belt revert to the republicans, while they will gain support as the far right republicans take over and screw everything up.Under this regime, the realignment is already happening. Biden and Clinton are not just the past, but the future of the democratic party, and people like Donald Trump and Ron Desantis are the future of the republican party.

This is the darkest timeline. We will be forced to choose between center right and right for the rest of our freaking lives. No progress will ever be achieved, and democrats will constantly vote out of fear against something, never for something.

To me, the prospects of this are so dismal voting green actually sounds, to me at least, like a good idea again. The only way for progressives to have a future in politics, is if they flat out abandon the democrats when they do stuff like this. If we give them a victory, even if it is a means to get Trump out, it will just legitimize them and this strategy, and nothing will ever change.

In the long term, what is the greater evil? Well, that's for you to decide. I've made it a policy of mine not to rip Biden voters too hard unless they're aggressive of belligerent. I get it. Trump is an awful president, perhaps the worst we've ever had. I totally get the harm reduction argument. But I just can't follow it. Respect me, and I'll respect you. I just can't stand by and watch as this horrible alignment becomes permanent for the next half a century.

2020 Election Predictions

So I know I haven't kept this blog up much. Just have been dealing with other things and haven't been very motivated. But I do want to start my first major forecast model for the 2020 presidential election. So, unlike what I predicted last year, Biden DID win the primary, and I would argue that while it seemed like after Nevada my own prediction would come true, the democratic party did put their fingers on the scale and Biden ended up winning after all. Thanks a lot, Jim Clyburn and Barack Obama. But that's another topic for another day. I'm here primarily to model for 2020 now that we knowthat it is Biden vs Trump and getting somewhat close to the election. Given that 538 released a model today and I've been procrastinating, I decided I should get in on this and start making my own model today. 

In 2016, my core model wasn't bad. I did not predict the rust belt swing, as it was not foretold in the polls, but I did notice in the 48 hours leading up to the election that polling swung hard for Trump at the last minute. And I ultimately gave Clinton like a 56% chance of winning and Trump a 44% chance. Yeesh. I mean, that was way too close for Clinton. She had this massive advantage in most of my forecasts, but then last minute, gone. Trump surged as the last minuters made up their minds and the energy favored Trump. I doubt that will happen this time. I mean, the way I see it, a lot of people in 2016 were voting against Hillary and the democrats, and I think this time more people are hyper focused on removing Trump no matter who we get. That said "vote blue no matter who" will dominate the energy of this election in my opinion and I'm not expecting a similar fluke to happen in favor of Trump. 

That said, I will predict the election the same way I did in 2016. To get into the data...

Aggregate polling: Biden +7.7%

 Yeesh. While Trump has a very loyal base, they are not the majority of the country. Regardless of peoples' perceptions of Biden, most people HATE Trump. I mean, between COVID, the second great depression, his authoritarian tendencies, etc., he's making enemies anywhere. Of course, you'll have around 40% of people being for Trump no matter what. You get that in almost every election. I would say Trump is screwed, but I DID live through an election recently where I said Trump was screwed then too, and things did change. So I won't be that firm on it, but I do think it's very unlikely he will win. Just my thoughts on it. Of course the electoral college is what matters. So I'm going to look at the individual states and see how he's doing there. I'll calculate rough probabilities of winning each state based on current data assuming a 4% margin of error, meaning I'm aiming to look at states within 8 points as "in play." From there I'll calculate the most likely outcome and also predict the probabilities of each candidate winning. That said...

 Safe electoral votes: Biden - 212, Trump - 115

Ouch. So Biden needs 58 electoral votes to win, and Trump needs 155. This is why I found it so unlikely Trump could win in 2016. Hillary faced similar conditions and only needed to win a handful of swing states while Trump had to sweep the board. Of course, he actually DID sweep the board, which is how he won. So it is possible for Trump to win still IF he has enough of a groundswell nationwide like he did in 2016 to win all of the swing states. Now let's see what will happen this time.

States	Winner/Margin	SD	% Biden Win	% Trump Win	Electoral Votes if Biden Wins	Electoral Votes if Trump Wins
New Hampshire	Biden +9.3%	-2.33	99.01%	0.99%	216	326
Minnesota	Biden +7.0%	-1.75	95.99%	4.01%	226	322
Michigan	Biden +6.7%	-1.68	95.35%	4.65%	242	312
Wisconsin	Biden +6.5%	-1.62	94.74%	5.26%	252	296
Pennsylvania	Biden +6.4%	-1.60	94.52%	5.48%	272	286
Florida	Biden +5.0%	-1.25	89.43%	10.57%	301	266
Nevada	Biden +4.0%	-1.00	84.13%	15.87%	307	237
Ohio	Biden +2.3%	-0.58	71.90%	28.10%	325	231
Arizona	Biden +2.0%	-0.50	69.15%	30.85%	336	213
Maine CD2	Unknown (0.0%)	0.00	50.00%	50.00%	337	202
Nebraska CD2	Unknown (0.0%)	0.00	50.00%	50.00%	338	201
North Carolina	Trump +0.7%	+0.18	42.86%	57.14%	353	200
Georgia	Trump +1.0%	+0.25	40.13%	59.87%	369	185
Iowa	Trump 1.7%	+0.43	33.36%	66.64%	375	169
Texas	Trump +2.0%	+0.50	30.85%	69.15%	413	163
Missouri	Trump +6.4%	+1.60	5.48%	94.52%	423	125

  Yikes. First of all, my prediction as of now, 3 months out. Biden has a 95% chance of winning the election as it stands and Trump has a 5% chance. The most likely electoral college map has Biden winning 337 electoral votes and Trump 201.

If these polls are correct, this is going to be a blow out. I haven't seen a lot of deviation from this, by the way. In 2016 Hillary would suffer random dips in poll numbers at times where Trump started coming within spitting distance of winning. This is what happened leading up to the election which is why Trump won. The electoral college, as it exists, HEAVILY favors the democrats. I know the democrats have a lot of salt over 2016 and "muh popular vote", but honestly, the electoral college should theoretically ensure that a republican never wins the presidency again under the current alignment unless the democrat really screws up. Hillary really screwed up. All she needed to do was hold the rust belt on top of the states that she won. She couldn't even do that. She lost virtually all states on the chart above, only winning in Minnesota and New Hampshire. And her victories there were fairly narrow there if I recall. Trump needs to overperform polling by over 6 points nationwide to have a shot at winning. While he certainly overperformed by such a margin in some states, him doing it consistently is going to be very unlikely.

Now, do I think there is wiggle room here? Sure. But no matter how you slice it, as long as Biden holds the rust belt, New Hampshire, and Minnesota, Trump is screwed. This should be easy, but let's not hold our breath. To Trump's advantage and Biden's disadvantage, Biden does not have a very enthusiastic base. His supporters seem more brought together out of sheer hatred of Trump and wanting to get him out than love for Biden. He could overpoll on the basis of people simply not being motivated to vote for him. It happened last time. Moreover Trump seems intent on choking the post office in order to suppress the vote to reduce turnout so he can win. So could Biden's numbers be lower than what is shown? Sure. But Biden is polling so strongly his win is almost a statistically significant conclusion. On the flip side, it could work the other way. Trump has an enthusiastic base who will fall on their sword for the guy, but this isn't the majority of the country. And if a the country is motivated by hatred of Trump given his gross incompetence and malfeasance, well, Trump will lose by a landslide. Biden might even win the south. Honestly, I doubt that Biden will win Texas and Georgia, as they are always a tease for centrist democrats trying to win over alienated republican voters, but he is within striking distance. This should scare the crap out of Trump. Biden could walk away with over 400 electoral votes if he sweeps the map. Honestly, I think the numbers could change from now by up to about 4 points. I highly doubt the variance will exceed that barring major game changing events as I believe most people have already made up their minds, but honestly, that means that Biden could score anywhere from 301 to 413 electoral votes in my opinion.

I know, I know, we saw this before in 2016. I was here talking about how Trump was screwed and couldn't win and at one point I did think Clinton could walk away with 400 electoral votes too. But I highly doubt Trump can repeat 2016. He's just too hated right now, and the country is in a position they would vote for a literal crap sandwich just to get him out so we can have some sane leadership. In 2016 the democrats tried forcing said crap sandwich on us and they voted for Trump out of spite. I don't see that happening this time. Nina Turner's half a bowl of crap is starting to look too appealing for some right now. 

Anyway I might do a few more of these before the election. I definitely plan to do one on election day or the day before. They won't be as frequent as 2016 but honestly I don't expect much to change between now and November anyway. But long story short unless something changes the game significantly, Trump is screwed.

Thoughts on the second presidential debate

Okay, so we had two nights of presidential debates again, with the second being earlier tonight. I just wanted to give my thoughts on it.

Night 1

On night one, the dynamics were weird. I was expecting this Sanders-Warren showdown with most other candidates kinda being irrelevant, but instead we got everyone ganging up on Sanders and Warren with them largely taking similar positions and backing each other up. Some suggest CNN orchestrated this to shut down the progressive wing of the party. Have people like Delaney and Hickenlooper act as attack dogs against medicare for all. What ended up happening was the two candidates stuck together mostly and the centrists got thrashed. It was a beautiful thing to see.

It actually makes me kind of want a Sanders/Warren ticket if Yang fails to take off before the primaries start. To echo concerns from my previous article, I am genuinely concerned Sanders and Warren could split the progressive base allowing Biden to win. I would almost like to see the two campaigns join forces against the centrist candidates to lock out Biden and ensure one of them secures the nomination. I mean, I'm yang gang, but at the same time taking Yang out of the picture, a sanders/warren or warren/sanders ticket is literally my dream team at this point. Just saying. They work well together, and while I know some hardcore Sanders supporters think Warren is weak and a sell out, and Warren supporters are sometimes more moderate and see Sanders as divisive, progressives need to have each others' backs. We can criticize each other on the nuances of policy, but we ultimately need to defend each other against the onslaughts of the centrist establishment. Again, I'm Yang Gang. Andrew Yang is my preferred candidate. Hands down. But I'm perfectly willing to support Sanders or Warren if they get the nomination. I don't always agree with the nuances of their policies (the same can be said of Yang), but I'm willing to pull together for the big picture if I get most of what I want. Let's not be harsh to each other, even if we do critique each others' visions. It's better to get a progressive who may differ a bit in vision than to end up with a Hillary 2.0 like Biden.

Night 2

Tonight was a bit more like I expected on night 1. It was mostly Biden and Harris wrecking each other. Last month, Harris really slammed Biden good and hurt his polling numbers. Tonight, the opposite happened. Harris was nowhere near as charismatic. I felt she said a bunch of stuff, while saying nothing at all. She was boring, she was vapid. I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that she wasn't a real progressive and not a true believer on these issues. Biden is a centrist. He plays the pragmatist card, and he plays it well. He knows how to defend his ideas in debates. I hate Biden as a candidate but he's a good debater. Harris....last time she gave a lot of platitudes only to walk them back on medicare for all. Shortly before this debate she decided to back a specific plan intended to be more progressive than Biden's, but less so than Warren or Sanders. And everyone hated it. The progressives hate it for not being progressive enough and preserving the private industry, and Biden claims it destroys it and went after it like he would full blown medicare for all. And sadly Harris just couldn't defend it well. She's strattling ideals like FDR warned democrats about. And she just couldn't pull off a good defense like Warren or Sanders did on the night before. I expect her poll numbers to shrink.

Now, as for Yang. Yang did good. He got the last amount of time and was largely ignored again, but it's not his fault. CNN was stricter on the debate dynamics and controlled who spoke and when to a much larger degree. They gave tons of time to the spat between Harris and Biden but didn't give Yang much time. However, when he spoke, man he upped his game. He made very strong points on issues like the economy, healthcare, and immigration. His healthcare pitch was strangely pushing for progressive ideas with right wing framing, claiming that private health insurance inhibiting hiring of employees and the like. It was interesting to see. I will say he kind of had a habit of linking everything to basic income though and it kind of back fired. Like on climate change, he basically bypassed the green new deal and said basic income would help people move to higher ground. I mean...what?! Okay, I understand Yang's position here. He claims a green new deal won't do much to climate change because the US is only responsible for 15% of emissions and even if we curbed ours that doesn't mean China or India or Russia will curb theirs. Fair point. But his position came off as kind of tone deaf and made him sound like a single issue candidate. Again, I get it. As someone who strongly advocates for UBI and would consider myself an advocate for the concept, I understand how useful UBI is for society and how it helps so many people in so many situations. But he needs to be a little more dynamic and not turn everything into a UBI discussion. This coming from the guy who turns everything into a UBI discussion. Other than that though Yang was great and I expect to see a big boost. This might be his breakthrough moment.

Overall

 Overall I would say the last two nights were largely a win for progressives I favor and a loss for most centrists, minus Biden. Warren, Sanders, and Yang all performed well and I expect them to gain support. Biden defended his ideas from Harris, and Harris kind of imploded last night. Harris is the big loser of the major candidates this debate and I expect her to tank.

Next debate is going to have much stricter qualifications. You'll need to poll 2% in 4 polls and get so many donors to qualify. Major candidates will achieve this no problem. Yang is kind of on the border here and likely will qualify but still is in danger of not doing so (although after last night I think he will easily). I expect there to be around 6-8 candidates next time. We will almost definitely see Biden, Harris, Warren, Sanders, and Buttigieg. I also think Beto, Yang, and maybe Booker will likely qualify. Below that, who knows, I think most of the others are gonna get the axe. Most won't be missed. Except maybe Williamson and Inslee.

2020 Primary Update

So a few months ago I wrote a post based on data at the time suggesting that Bernie Sanders would win the nomination, Biden would implode, and Yang may have a breakout moment. Given the state of the race, I feel it would be good to revisit these predictions and update them to the current time based on what's happened since then.

The current polling averages:

Biden: 27.3%
Warren: 16.3%
Sanders: 14.8%
Harris: 14.3%
Buttigieg: 6.0%
O'Rourke: 2.5%
Yang: 1.8%
Booker: 1.8%
Gabbard: 1.5%
Klobuchar: 1.0%
Castro: 1.0%
Everyone else: <1.0%

A few things I want to comment on:

Biden is imploding, but still in the lead

Biden still maintains a decent lead but is losing support since the debate. I kind of expected this. It is unclear if he will lose frontrunner status soon as a lot of people are still supporting in despite his poor debate performance, but yikes, there are a lot of other candidates on his heels. Warren, Sanders, Harris. I suspect that if the progressives coalesce around a single candidate who gets most of the support of these three, they would wreck Biden and he will lose. However, Biden could still "Trump" it. Progressives could remain divided into camps, allowing Biden to eek out the nomination due to infighting kind of the way Trump did vs establishment conservatives in 2016. This is not to say voters should abandon their respective candidates in favor of "unity" as I believe there are significant ideological and policy differences between the second tier candidates and quite frankly it's way too early to unite. But I hope when the time comes we can at least get a progressive to beat Biden here. It would suck if Biden wins with 25% while Bernie, Harris, and Warren each have 15-20%.

I no longer feel confident in a Sanders victory

Let's face it. Sanders is not in the position he was in, in 2016. He's not an unknown. He's now very well known, and a lot of people don't like what they see. Some think he's divisive, some simply like another candidate more. And quite frankly, there's a lot to like. Yang supports basic income, Warren has been killing it with tons of detailed policies, and Harris has a lot of charisma and really let loose some zingers on Biden during the debates, attacking his record on things like busing in the 70s.

The numbers don't lie. Sanders is not doing well considering his position. He is no longer in a strong position to win. He still has a shot, but he's being overtaken by Warren and Harris is hot on his trail. I'm gonna be honest I'm surprised Sanders is doing so weakly, and Warren so strongly, but there's good reason for it. Sanders has a lot of good ideas but often does not articulate them well on debate stage, while Warren is very wonky and has been coming out with tons of detailed proposals. Warren is also attracting some mainstream democrats who are progressive but see Bernie as alienating. Harris also likes to play the part of a charismatic progressive on stage, which is attracting some support to her.

That said, Sanders has his work cut out for him. He not only needs to topple Biden, but he also needs to beat Warren who offers an alternative progressive vision to his, and Harris, who likes to say progressive things but not follow through.

Can Yang still have a breakout moment?

I'm gonna be honest, I thought when Yang got on the debate stage he would have a breakout moment, but he did very poorly at the debates. Part of this was MSNBC's fault, he claimed his microphone wasn't working and that he tried to butt in a few times, only to be unsuccessful. He got the least amount of talk time of any candidate on both nights, and when he did talk he talked fast and did not come off well. He seemed out of his depth. Regardless he will have future chances later this month, and he is on track to make the second round of debates, which puts him in the top 7 candidates. So he's not out of it. If anything despite poor coverage he still got a bump just for being there and getting people to google him.

I do have doubts he can win though. While I support the guy and he is currently my preferred candidate, I do not think his views are resonating in the party. The Bernie guys are moving toward a jobs guarantee, the Warren and Biden guys seem unwilling to consider such a radical idea without good reason, and while Harris has the "lift act", that's the closest thing to a UBI anyone has proposed who has a chance other than Yang.

It's a shame really. UBI is a good policy and most arguments against it come off as BS to me, but a lot of lefties are suddenly defending welfare and the like when Yang comes up, and he starts getting accused of being a right wing techno libertarian for his support of the idea. There's a lot of tribalism on the left right now and it's really killing the idea to some degree. The left is simply eating its own.

My own opinions on the candidates and who I want to win

As I said, I largely support Yang for his freedom dividend plan. While his implementation is flawed, I am hoping he corrects it if he wins the primary. And while he does not support the exact kinds of ideas I support on other major issues like healthcare and college, his views are still largely acceptable to me given his support for UBI.

Bernie is my second choice right now. I like his medicare for all and free college proposals, as well has his calls to abolish student debt. I'm not as big on the jobs guarantee nonsense and his outright opposition to UBI is a huge reason I've moved to Yang, but he's still clearly my second favorite choice. He's the OG progressive in recent years, the other candidates are largely attempting to copy him, and I see no reason to abandon him unless someone else supports an innovative idea  he doesn't like UBI.

Of the major candidates Warren is my third choice. She has a lot of good ideas, but she's more moderate and piecemeal with them a lot of the time. For example her student debt plan would only help people with under $50000 in debt and only if you meet certain income thresholds. She did endorse medicare for all in the debates but she previously dragged her feet with it. She just has a propensity for less radical solutions and band aids. While a huge improvement over Clinton I just think Sanders and Yang are much stronger candidates. I still like her though.

Harris is my fourth choice (ignoring weaker candidates like, say, Tulsi Gabbard). She sounds very progressive but as I said previously I dont trust her. She will say all these great things in debates but then she will change her mind or say she didn't mean it or misinterpreted the question or something. So she's mostly talk and little bite in my opinion.

Buttigieg has seriously lost favor with me since gaining popularity. He has moved a lot to the center and I just don't see the appeal of him any more. I dont dislike him like Biden or Delaney or Hickenlooper or something, but he just doesn't come off to me as a candidate I really would support over the above.

Beyond that the other choices are either polling too bad, or the candidates themselves are sufficiently lame in my opinion where I don't feel they're worth talking about. I don't like Biden, or Beto, or Booker, and don't think anyone else other than the ones above even have a shot.

Conclusion

A lot has changed in the last few months and while some previous predictions of mine, like Biden losing steam, seem to be coming true, other predictions seem off. Bernie seems to be stagnating, Yang has not had his breakout moment yet and might just fall flat given the current state of the party (although there's still hope), and Warren is overtaking Bernie in the polls with Harris just behind him. If I had to guess who would win right now, I would likely say Warren has a very good shot, or possibly Biden eeking it out simply from people failing to coalesce behind a single other candidate. Sanders is currently third or fourth in terms of likelihood to win, and is currently roughly tied with Harris. I don't know where things are going from here, but it's very competitive. I'd say 4 candidates have a very good shot at winning right now. Another 3-4 are maybes, but only if they can break out. And beyond that, I don't see much changing between now and when primaries start.