The latest Field Poll out of California shows something that might be a little disconcerting to Democrats. The headlines about the poll all read that Clinton is crushing Trump in the Golden State, and that’s true. The poll finds that Clinton is beating Trump by an eye-popping 58%-28% margin, with 14% undecided. That hints at a much worse spanking than Mitt Romney (38.3%) received from President Obama (59.63%) in 2012. It suggests that Clinton is on track (when undecideds are allocated) to outperform the 61%-37% smackdown that Obama administered to John McCain in 2008.
But is she?
When the Field Poll tested a three-way race including Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, the 14% undecided vote did not move an inch. What happened was that Trump’s support dropped by two points to 26% and Clinton’s support dropped eight points to fifty percent.
Part of the explanation might be found here:
Trump is also drawing an unusually low level of support from voters outside the Republican Party, polling in single digits among Democrats and at 20 percent or below among independent voters.
“I think Trump supporters in California appear to be pretty hard-core supporters,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll. “But they’re down to a relatively small number, and that’s really his problem.”
In California, at least, Trump is testing the Crazification Factor again, straddling that magic 27% Alan Keyes Constant. This, not 40%, is probably Trump’s absolute floor. He’s so low already that there are hardly any more votes to peel off, so if you add more options to the mix, most of the support they’ll get is from people who’d otherwise vote for Clinton.
Clinton and the Democrats don’t need to care about this too much in a state where they have a thirty-point lead over Trump, but nationally they don’t want all of Gary Johnson’s support to come out of her hide. They already know that pretty much all of Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s support will be at her expense.
California may be a special case, I don’t know. In battleground states, it could be that more disaffected Republicans and right-leaning undecideds will come around to voting for Gary Johnson. But the results of this one poll out of California are at least a warning that this cannot just be assumed.
I’ve seen worse numbers for Clinton among independents, generally. A lot of people don’t like Clinton.
It was common knowledge that Clinton is the second-most disliked candidate for Prez. Everybody knew this before the primaries.
Which flaming bag of dog excrement will we find on our doorstep the day after election day?
Prior to becoming a candidate again, Clinton’s numbers were staggeringly high. She was polling above 80% approval with progressives and her numbers with Republicans were not bad at all.
Because she wasnt being attacked and not involved in the daily political struggles. For a known political figure of her recognition there was no way that would last. And besides we’ve known this for at least 6 months.
She has a problem now. Her unfavorables are likely to go up after this e mail dust up. That hearing in DC is hard to watch. But her Dems are doing their best to defend her and buck up Comey.
As I continue to watch all this unfold, I have been venting a bit lately to my wife. So I guess I can vent here, too. I have to admit, as a “boots on the ground” guy who is out there knocking on doors and trying to get Democrats elected, all this really just kind of deflates me a bit. It is already difficult enough, especially in my area, to be a grassroots Democrat on the front lines. But I am already seeing that it is going to be extremely difficult to reach people on kitchen table issues, when I am going to always have to be on the defensive and try to get past the lapses in judgment by Clinton, and whole narrative that is being set right now. Sure, a lot of it is bullshit, plain and simple. We all know that. But a lot of it isn’t bullshit. And it is truly impossible to disjoin the two while standing on someone’s front porch, trying to persuade someone who just wants to throw all this up in your face and broad-brush it to include Democrats in general.
Hillary Clinton has assisted in tying a 100 pound millstone around the necks of every Democratic activist who cares enough to spend their free nights and weekends tilling the political ground and attempting to plant seeds for Democratic principles out in the wilds of the general electorate.
And I thought it was difficult around my area putting myself on the front lines for a black President. I think that will end up being a breeze compared to what I’m going to go through over the next 3 1/2 months. I’m afraid I am going to need another few thick layers on my hide to get through this election cycle
Curious, is it up to the local workers to design the spiel used in one-on-ones? Do you actually discuss trade and minimum wage, etc? Or is all Trump, all the time.
Been a looong time since I was able to do the door-to-door. I am sure it is more organized these days.
You know, the campaigns always give people a script, or at least some talking points to use. A lot of people find that helpful. But I have never felt like it was beneficial for me. I did some canvassing training for fresh-faced young OFA folks in 2012, and some of them would ask me during the training to do a simulated visit, with them playing the role of the voter, so they could see how it might go. And I would always just kind of ad-lib the encounter, based on my quick reading of the person, their initial demeanor and what kind of feedback they would give me to what was just a simple introductory question or inquiry by me about where they felt they were on supporting my candidate. Then I would pivot the conversation in the direction where I determined I might get the biggest bang for the few minutes of their time which I might be given. It was all very free-wheeling and improvisational, and was largely a snap judgment by me. But I’ve had decades in the real world and in my work life to hone some of that ability. That, and years of learning a lot about politics from some of my favorite bloggers. I was informed enough to know how to respond to the vast majority of things that people brought up.
I always wanted my encounters to not feel scripted, but a genuine conversation, hopefully on something I gleaned was important to them. I would often just flat out ask people what issue most animated and motivated them to vote for a particular candidate, and why that issue mattered to them. I have had many very good conversations at people’s doors, simply by listening for what was important to them, and framing it back in way that showed my candidate had a response and an answer to their issue.
I’m not a natural salesman, but I have always been a keen listener and observer of people. And that has helped me immensely in honing my door to door canvassing abilities.
I’m in agreement with the idea that trying to ascertain the voter’s main concerns can be helpful. Sometimes that can be the most direct path to the deepest persuasion. Unfortunately, it can also be a circuitous path which leads the canvasser away from a discussion which can persuade the voter, but instead gives voters a forum to air their resentments and demands, many of which can’t even be met by the politician you are campaigning for.
The reason I feel a basic script is important to execute at the beginning of the call or knock is that there is information about candidates which poll extremely well, information which is important to place before the voter in the course of a persuasion conversation. We need to be certain to place that information about the candidate in the minds of voters.
Yes. I wouldn’t recommend an ad lib encounter for everyone, or even most people, who are canvassing. And when I say I eschewed the script, I meant that I didn’t rely on the scripted format. Issues are always central to the conversation, and there is always an issue summary that canvassers will be given, too, that gives a basic overview of the candidate’s positions on the topics deemed most important by the campaign. Everyone needs to be well rehearsed on those topics. Those are extremely important to convey. I would always use that as a template for discussion, and would often use the facts that were contained in it, but I wouldn’t recite it.
It’s really like any presentation you might give, say, in a business setting, to inform or persuade people. One usually doesn’t write something and then read it verbatim. We’ve all sat through those kinds of things and they often can come off as stilted and over-rehearsed, which makes it feel disingenuous to the audience. You have bullet points that you always want to hit, which in this case are the campaign issues, and you extrapolate on those with some details and re-tailor things on the fly based on feedback that you get from your audience.
Yes, if one isn’t well practiced, you can often veer off into a bitch session that only results in someone venting and you walk away with accomplishing nothing more than providing a platform for it. And sometimes that can happen regardless of how hard one tries to stay on track. When I canvass, it always seems that everyone is done and gone home by the time I get back to the meeting place. And I think that is because I generally do end up spending a bit more time lingering at places where I think there is potential for a substantial conversation.
In agreement here. And man, can I relate to the experiences you share in the last paragraph.
Additionally, while you are extremely well informed, the vast majority of the campaign volunteers you train are less well informed. Some may even be misinformed. It is risky to trust them with broader ad-libbed conversations with voters.
This method leaves canvassers more frequently defenseless in the face of voters’ views they do not know how to respond to, and direct questions about the candidate which they have to answer “I don’t know.” And unfortunately the voter may never allow the campaign another moment to answer the voter’s question.
These things happen in more scripted conversations as well, but making the conversation too free-wheeling puts our volunteers more frequently at the mercy of voters who don’t have the same set of interests our campaigns do.
Again, I like more free-wheeling conversations as well, and I’ve asked the open “What’s the most important thing you want your next local elected/Legislator/Congressmember/President to do?” question. I know that it’s not what all the campaign volunteers should do, though.
Thank you for the feedback. Sounds like a very sensible approach for one with your experience.
that’s what I do also. very much enjoy going door to door. I think on this round you’re going to have to emphasize the downballot candidates. and have a good conversation about the issues – imo that’s one of the key things about door to door; we discuss on this blog, but lots of ppl don’t have that kind of opportunity and they need to discuss the issues
I always see what issues are of interest to the person and talk about them. they give out a script and it’s good for guidelines, but if you know the issues and the area you can just have a conversation. I think Mike is going to have to emphasize the downballot candidates.
I don’t know what she can do. This statement from Comey and the hearing today are really hard to take.
anything you can say about the hearing today? immersed in work all day, have heard nothing except suggestions on this thread
Mike, I encourage you to watch the examinations by Democrats during the hearing, particularly Rep. Cummings’ concluding summary. There’s a bunch of facts established in these questions and answers which provide significant clarity to the issue of classified emails in this case, facts which lead to significantly different conclusions than those I reached after hearing Comey’s press conference and some of the early examinations during today’s House Government Reform Committee hearing.
As far as the conversations you have with voters at the doors, if a person is swayed heavily by Clinton’s emails they were extremely unlikely to be a Hillary supporter in the first case. It might be best to conclude some of those conversations quickly, because many of those voters are just not persuadable.
If a voter is less dogmatic, but concerned about the idea that there is one rule for Clinton and another rule for others, talking about how Trump has actively used bankruptcy laws and armies of lawyers over and over to fuck over small business after small business so that Donald could profit while the business owners and their employees were left holding the bag…well, that sounds lots closer to the concerns of the average voter than the nuances of government email uses and security classifications.
I am not able to watch today’s hearing, but I will be curious to see some excerpts tonight.
As for my conversations with voters, I guess I would refer you to my reply to mino that is up-thread for my take on dealing with people when going door to door. This cycle is going to be a lot different than the last two Presidential ones. I’m just not too sure yet on exactly how I will hone my process to deal with all these new sorts of crazy and unprecedented dynamics that we are facing this time. I really do need to find a way to directly and forcefully address this whole sordid saga in a way that is convincing, yet not in-your-face combative. This decision by the FBI, and this testimony today, is going to really rev up the juices of a lot of people in this red Republican area.
She just fricken lied to everyone. She said she had clearance from the Department of State to use a private server.
That was a bald faced lie. Straight up. The IG found no evidence she did.
What you say when you are canvassing and someone brings that up I have no idea.
I think that is where the real problem is. No one is really all that comfortable if they are honest in having one couple hold power for 16 of the last 32 years. Add on top of that the idiotic lapses of judgement on Goldman and the email stuff – which aren’t criminal but just show someone out of touch – and it is hard to get excited.
I remember her last rally in Iowa. Chelsea and Bill and Hillary. And even in that crowd – which was largely her own campaign workers – there just wasn’t real excitement.
I think the position on college ed helps. People need something to fight for that they can explain easily. That is what these idiot wonks never understand.
But still – someone asks me how Clinton is going to help them make more money or keep their job from being offshored – I got nothing.
Bernie just came out in strong support of a higher education initiative that he essentially co-formed with Hillary:
https:/berniesanders.com/press-release/revolutionary-step-forward-higher-education
You could also look at the many areas of Clinton’s campaign which address various employment issues:
https:/www.hillaryclinton.com/issues
You could also consider what sort of leaders Hillary would install in the Labor Department and NLRB in comparison with what sort of people would be nominated as top leaders for those agencies by Trump.
There’s any sort of ways that voters might be persuaded to understand how much better a Clinton Administration and Democratic majority Congress would be for their job circumstances than a Trump Administration. even before you get to Trump’s horrible record and preposterous, hateful rhetoric.
Yea – and that helps a guy worried about his plant moving to China, or offshoring her job to India how?
None of what she does is going to make a material difference.
That is the simple truth.
Have you EVER canvassed?
Mike – what do you think the reaction would be to talking about an NLRB appointment? Are hers going to be better than Obama’s?
All you can say is at least she isn’t Trump.
Hillary’s against the current TPP language. You can decide you don’t want to believe her, which would make it impossible for you to speak to workers concerned about offshoring by responding with the fact that Hillary is against the current TPP language, since trade agreements are the issue which many people tie into offshoring, but the opportunity is there for you.
You could talk to the worker concerned about offshoring that offshoring of manufacturing and other jobs would have taken place in the last two decades with or without NAFTA. You could say that, because it would be true. It’s hurtful to lie to them and say that if we defeat TPP their jobs are guaranteed to stay here.
You could tell these voters that it is vitally important that workers in the growing service sector job market, a market less vulnerable to offshoring, have their ability to organize and collectively bargain strengthened, and that Clinton supports Union organizing and Trump does not.
You could advocate that minimum wages need to be raised at the Federal, State and local levels. You could share with them that Hillary wants a large increase, to $12 an hour or higher, in the Federal wage and larger increases in local and State minimum wages, while Trump has said that the current Federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is too high.
You could point out the Obama Administration’s raises in minimum wages for homecare workers, employees of government contractors, and others. You could point out to them that the NLRB has moved rulings which are likely to give collective bargaining rights to workers in fast food and other service industries, and will prevent employers from using lockouts to punish and obstruct Union workers in contract fights. You could point out that Clinton wants to continue and expend these policies.
You could explain how awful the current SCOTUS has been for working people with its Harris v. Quinn and other decisions, and that Clinton would appoint judges like those who dissented in these decisions, almost all decided by 5-4, with the deceased Judge Scalia as the deciding vote.
I’ve canvassed plenty, and trained others.
Your dislike of Clinton is getting in the way of clear-eyed observations of the wide gulf between the candidates on issues which affect working people.
you are confusing Fladem’s observations with MikeinOhio’s initial comment – or conflating the two or something. I’m guessing you don’t recall Fladem’s postings on the IA caucuses and his discussion of Sanders
No, I’m confusing nothing. fladem is directly claiming there is nothing good to say about the record of Clinton and the Democratic Party re. working people. I am offering some concrete examples.
fladem wrote a diary about the education thing 2 days ago btw. I don’t read the discussion thread the way you do, but that’s that
They will be split ticket voting, too, no doubt. And the down ballot ones probably won’t be Dems
This doesn’t surprise me at all. Trump’s numbers are very low compared to a “conventional” Republican, while Clinton’s are high compared to a conventional Democrat in a competitive race. So some of Clinton’s voters in that poll are people who would seriously consider or even prefer a Republican but are so horrified by Trump that in a 2-person race they actively prefer Clinton (not a surprise). When offered the opportunity to vote for a relatively conventional Republican governor many do so, even if he’s technically running as a Libertarian.
This may change later in the race because probably most of the undecided are Republican-leaners uncomfortable with Trump. I suspect they’ll break much more for Trump if Johnson is not in the race.
In any case, Johnson’s campaign is a net negative for us, as he’ll bring out Republican leaners to vote downticket.
That’s my worry. That the Johnson ticket makes taking back the Senate harder and puts taking back the House (already unlikely) out of reach.
I suspect that Johnson will take equally from Trump and Clinton, maybe moreso for Trump.
As long as Wasserman-Schultz, Schumer et al keep backing neoliberal corporatists for Congress the Republicans will control Congress. But for neoliberals that’s okay. They certainly all will vote for Hillary’s wars.
I saw a survey of historical negatives for Presidential candidates and Presidents. Nixon’s was only 11% at his worst, which strikes me as incredible. Or maybe we were more forgiving back then.
Re: Nixon’s unfavorables, I imagine it’s due to increased polarization.
California is probably a special case w/re to marijuana legalization, which is what Gary Johnson is most known for.
Some interesting speedbumps in Clinton’s proposals. Would guess she will not be winning that issue.
http://www.theweedblog.com/is-hillary-clinton-bluffing-on-her-marijuana-policy-stance/
California will be voting on whether to legalize recreational use. This will bring out Johnsons’s followers, but will also mobilize young Democrats. In the end, I think it will be to our advantage.
Same thing in Vermont.Clinton up only 39-24 with Johnson and Stein both in double digits.
I think this post, and that poll are nonsense – their parties almost always collapse in the end.
https:/vtdigger.org/2016/07/07/poll-clinton-has-15-point-edge-over-trump-in-vermont
also a special case because we know Clinton is crushing Trump here, so the pissed-off of both parties can throw a protest vote without worrying.
But i’ve gotten the impression that the pissed-off “bernie or bust” dems are going for Stein not the libertarians.
After what is going on in DC today and will be for the next four months as they investigate Hillary’s lies further (as already promised), we can expect this election to be a barn burner. I think they are making me an expert between extreme carelessness and grossly negligent. The negligent one is bad. Well it is in the espionage act anyway.
The question is: can Hillary recover from this? Or will we get the Orange Tart to show us how to fight the evil in the world?
Recover from what? She’s leading comfortably in almost every poll, she has a massive advantage in the electoral college, and she’s running against an ill-informed, underfunded lunatic who can’t stay on message and is intensely disliked by his party’s leadership.
She’s also got boatloads of money and a massive campaign/GOTV organization, both of which Trump lacks and shows no signs of improving upon.
I am suggesting this e mail thing could have legs. At least the republicans are trying to make it so. One of them already suggested they need to now investigate further since she ” lied” to the Benghazi committee. You can believe Trump is going to make something of it. And as far as Trump being disliked by the party, well, there’s a bridge in Brooklyn up for sale too. So we will see where it goes from here.
The email thing won’t have legs. There are very few true swing voters and Hillary is a known quantity. Plus she’s running against Trump.
Bullpucky. Though republicans will do what they can to make something of it, her “lies” were nothing of the sort and Comey’s been poking holes in those assertions all morning. Also, as it’s been well covered, even if some foreign intelligence service had all of the email in question (note that there’s zero evidence that they do, even though the State Department system that she was supposed to be using was itself breached.. hers wasn’t), that there’d be no useful information for them.
So, while you’re busy wringing your hands over the latest pseudo-scandal, the rest of us will shrug and move on with making sure that we win.
I’m trying to see how someone who could find a Libertarian appealing….
that they’d be voting for Hillary.
I don’t see it.
This.
‘I’m a democrat and I don’t like Clinton, so I will vote for the libertarian’.
.
Clinton has announced that she’ll go all PNAC on Syria as President. She plans to establish a no-fly zone where Russian jets are flying. When the first Russian plane goes down how do you think the Russians will react? What happens with those S-400s?
I guess since the US paid for them you’d want to defend the al Qaeda formations in Syria. Just consider that your vote, if for Clinton, is going to be imbued with blood and death. And that’s before she liberates Crimea and continues in Afghanistan.
So you own Clinton, you can’t control her killing, and right now she’s spelled out what she plans to do. You own her.
That’s sure a complicated fantasy.
…and Saddam had WMDs and now a million are dead in Iraq. If you don’t know about the forty-year history of western intelligence and various Salafist movements around the world, or if you don’t know about the US’s seventy-year history with fascist formations in eastern Europe and Ukraine, then come back when you do. To call what you don’t know a fantasy means that you haven’t been reading your history. Maybe it’s too complicated for you to pay attention.
Clinton says she will impose a no-fly zone over Syria. Was she lying or telling the truth? You watched the debates, right? It was an announcement of the shooting war with Russia.
Or just be surprised. In fact, come back here in a year and tell us how surprised you were.
I dunno. Were her lips moving?
So unless I comment in detail on every aspect of your fantasy about Hillary Clinton telling Vladimir Putin to bring on World War Three, it means I’m ignorant? More like, hey, I had a few minutes to look at this blog over lunch. Geez Louise. I guess I need to have boilerplate prepared for every possible topic.
I watched exactly one Clinton/Sanders debate. However, I had the 25 year old member of my household watching them obsessively, along with every address that Sanders made, it seems. I overheard a lot. One debate sounded like another. One Sanders address sounded like another (and like the address he gave at the Memorial Coliseum in Portland in summer 2015–I’ll bet we were both in the audience).
Anyway, the no-fly-zone idea is ridiculous.
I live in NE Portland. I’m sure we could have an animated chat over a cup of coffee.
A lot of libertarians voted for Obama. A lot of them are libertarians on the drug issue, or at least it’s of paramount concern for them, and he was the most “drug friendly” nominee in a while. Also for his opposition to the Iraq War. I imagine a lot of those libertarians who were Obama curious in 2008 most likely did not vote for him in 2012.
She could shore up a lot of support simply by endorsing the measure in California and dropping the wishy washy “wait and see” position while she “evolves”. The party as a whole favors it, as do independents. The only groups that don’t are either old or Republican.
She’s still triangulating. Maybe if she spent a little more time with people and less time with donors she could actually sniff the shift in marijuana acceptance.
Hello Bob in Portland…Bob in Portland…Bob in PORTLAND OREGON for chrissakes! I live in Portland, too, and have several cannabis retailers within easy walking distance of home. Are you imagining that the whole country is like that? Or wants to be like that? We both know that some small towns here in Oregon have been taking steps to ban all cannabis, including medical cannabis. Man, the People’s Republic of Portland is just not a good sample of the nation as a whole.
I can tell you of a couple of diehard Democrats (siblings) who live in California and are not enamored of cannabis legalization there.
Many areas of Colorado are trying to do the same thing with banning stores from existing (similar to dry counties). And yet, in Colorado legalization got more votes than did Obama in 2012.
A majority of Americans want marijuana decriminalized. It’s not a major criticism of her (unlike her foreign policy), it’s just that that is the way that history is moving, has been moving. She is conservative and tends to get on bandwagons instead of leading, but that’s okay. She will eventually get onboard.
Not sure if it’s the law yet or not, but the communities/counties that ban the sale of marijuana in Oregon won’t be getting the considerable taxes that marijuana generates. My in-laws from the South just presumed, from their news sources, that Oregon is in chaos since marijuana legalization. Not so. Crime is down, marijuana use by teens is down. Just the opposite of the scare stories.
She will triangulate that it would be better not to be closer to Chris Christie than the majority of Americans. She’ll eventually be onboard, unless the coalition of smugglers/law enforcement/private prisons makes her an offer she can’t refuse.
There’s a pretty strong argument that a President should be elected primarily on foreign policy because that is what Presidents actually control. Domestic policy is chiefly in the hands of Congress. On foreign policy, Johnson and the LP generally are strongly anti-interventionist, which aligns better with most progressives than Clinton’s position, which is hawkish. Bob is right: a no-fly zone in Syria is a serious mistake, from the same woman who (ill)advised Obama to attack Libya. She said the Iranians were one of the enemies of which she was most proud. We’re just coming to terms with them, and she is taking pride in their hostility.
My vote for Jill Stein will not be at Clinton’s “expense”. It was never Clinton’s to begin with.
15 years of whining about Ralph Nader notwithstanding, the Democratic Party does not “own”, nor is it “owed”, the votes of progressives.
I understand: your vote is a precious gift. Also, I’m glad that you recognize that, ultimately, this election is about you and your feelings.
Clinton said she’d establish a no-fly zone in Syria. And you’re onboard. Enjoy your vote for war. We told you she was despised, and I personally explained how she was despised by the Left.
But you and the Hilz Gang refused to acknowledge her disastrous unpopularity, instead attacking a true progressive.
So now you’re bitter that progressives still don’t like her, and a number have expressed that they will no longer hold their noses for that (D).
Well, isn’t that precious? I’m sure that there’s a wall near you where you can beat your head.
That’s right.
Oh my, “whining about Ralph Nader”. Let me confess that I voted for Nader twice (1996 and 2000). In 1996, it was because of Bill Clinton’s triangulating. In 2000, it was because of…hell, I don’t even remember now. Then I woke up and realized that Ralph Nader was a moralizing, egotistical jerk who had not the slightest interest in winning, let alone in actual governance. What he did care about was the adulation he received from his fans.
Just curious, so let me ask you about your state: does the Green Party exist beyond having a P.O. Box? Does it run candidates for local offices, the state legislature, and so on? Or does it only exist as a vehicle for an every-four-years quixotic presidential campaign?
I suppose it depends upon the state, but I’d wager most GP and LP state organizations are pretty thin at best. Certainly is the case in my state. The GP was able to run a few perennial protest candidates in my state, but none of them – even with meager resources – appeared willing to truly mount any sort of campaign. The LP has not been much better historically, although every election year (including midterms) there is always the much ballyhooed “this will be our year” rhetoric. I can understand the appeal of the Greens to those left of HRC. The Libertarians, given their economic positions, would be a no-go. I suppose there are “progressives” and “leftists” who would trade the social services we still have left for the promise of legal weed. I guess if you’re going to go full-on laissez-faire capitalism, you’d want to be high all the time so as not to have to face the consequences.
Do you even know where Mr. Krupin lives? Maybe he lives in CA, which Clinton will carry by 20 even if he votes for Stein.
So they’ll poll Johnson but won’t poll Stein? Hmmm!! Why is Johnson included in the first place?
If the pollsters included Stein it would cut into Clinton’s numbers. So they pretend she doesn’t exist. Think of all the problems they had when Sanders was in the race getting sidetracked from the pre-approved narrative.
Stein isn’t on the ballot in every state. I haven’t looked but did she make in CA yet?
Johnson will likely be on the ballot in at least 48 states and maybe all of them
Yes, the Green Party has ballot access in California.
http://www.gp.org/ballotaccess
So, for that matter, does the Peace and Freedom Party, which is to the left of the Greens (yes, that’s possible) and the American Independent Party, which is George Wallace’s baby and to the right of both the Republicans and Libertarians. Lots of ways to bleed disaffected votes to the left and right of the major parties in the Golden State.
interesting, thanks for the info
No mystery as to the logic used to construct the polls. No name and no bucks presidential candidates almost never break 5% in pre-election polling. This is Stein’s second ride at the rodeo and if not for Bernie’s campaign, her numbers would hardly have budged at all from those of 2012.
If the Libertarian Party had nominated another no name/no bucks/no experience ticket, pollsters wouldn’t bother polling that ticket either. Two reasons why they’re doing so now. First preliminary polling suggested that Johnson was doing better than he had in 2012. Second, the Johnson/Weld ticket has solid experience credentials that the presumptive GOP candidate lacks. Johnson/Weld is like a boutique GOP ticket. Destined to be no more than a GOP spoiler in a more normal election cycle. But there is nothing normal about Trump. He’s less well-liked than Palin and scarier than Goldwater.
Johnson/Weld can conceivably pull in disaffected Republicans and a goodly chunk of self-styled moderate independents. Going with Johnson/Weld over Trump can be rationalized as a principled vote, but they can also be reasonably certain that Trump will lose regardless of what they do. And given a choice between Johnson/Weld and Clinton/X, they would prefer to live with the former.
From DownWithTyranny!, a Wall Street J article excerpt:
Hillary Clinton’s Negatives Complicate Ties Down the Ballot
Polling suggests a risk for Democratic candidates who endorse the presumptive nominee
… An offshoot of Mrs. Clinton’s low favorability rating is that candidates who tie themselves to her risk alienating voters they need to win, polling shows.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey last month asked whether people would be more inclined to vote for a Democratic candidate who endorsed Mrs. Clinton’s presidential bid. Some 32% said they would be less likely to vote for that candidate, while only 15% said they would be more inclined. More than half said the endorsement wouldn’t matter either way.
In a dozen battleground states–including North Carolina–voters by a 13-point margin would be less inclined to vote for candidates who endorse Mrs. Clinton, the Journal/NBC poll showed. Among independent voters, just 4% said they would be more apt to vote for candidates who support Mrs. Clinton, while 38% would be less inclined. …
To put that plainly, according to the article the polling question was: Would you be “more inclined to vote for a Democratic candidate who endorsed Mrs. Clinton’s presidential bid?”
Among voters in general:
Yes: 15%
No: 32%
Among independent voters:
Yes: 4%
No: 38%
Let that sink in.
What in the world does “more inclined to vote for” even mean?
Imaginary voter: Hm, I was 73% inclined to vote for the Democratic Senate candidate, but now that he’s endorsed Hillary Clinton, I’m only 58% inclined to vote for him.
What is that supposed to mean?
Anyway, you’ve been quite ably making your point for months that a lot of people like yourself do not like Hillary Clinton. And that you’re not going to hold your nose and vote for her. And that you’re hoping for/expecting a Trump victory. (Maybe I ought to just wrote “expecting”, because you cannot possibly believe that a President Trump would be less likely to commit all the war crimes that you confidently expect from a President H. Clinton.)
It’s a poll. A significant amount of voters won’t vote for down-ticket Dems who are too closely tied to Clinton.
That’s what it means. Considering that the Dems most likely to cuddle up to Clinton are the DLC/New Dem poseurs who generally lose to Republicans, why would you be surprised? Or haven’t you noticed the track record of the Wasserman-Schultzes and Schumers in backing neoliberals?
You decided to pitch in with the second-most despised candidate for the presidency in the history of polling. You were told she was the second-most despised candidate. Why should you be surprised to find out that she’s toxic to down-ticket Dems?
One has to understand polling and polls and methods to interpret them as of the poll date and to project from the data to some future point in time. All that requires knowledge from multiple disciplines. Our friend here keeps failing the first piece of such an analysis and therefore, can only revert to talking points for Hillary.
Marie, were any polls of Obama/down ticket disadvantage ever released in 2014? If they were like these, they were 180 degrees wrong, no?
Very odd.
Not sure I understand your question. Obama did figure in the 2014 midterms. Many Democrats, particularly those running for the Senate, distanced themselves from Obama and hugged the Clintons. Democrats took great comfort in the 2014 pre-election polling because their candidates were either close to or ahead of their competitors. I didn’t agree with their interpretation. With the general electorate the Clintons aren’t anywhere near as popular as their fans assert. Plus, the 2010 midterm losses weren’t about Obama being “too liberal” or too black, but that he rolled over for Wall St. and people lacked money and jobs.
That said, I didn’t ace interpreting the 2014 polls either. First flub in a dozen years. For whatever reason, the bias in the polls flipped in 2014. From a slight GOP bias previously to a more measurable (after the fact) Dem bias. For example, previously if a poll had it at 50/50, the Dem would win by a something like one-half to two points. In 2014, it meant a Dem loss by two to four points. The trends before 2014 added more weight to the direction the electorate was moving. The 2014 trends added nothing.
The polling on the GOP primary in this cycle has been very good to excellent. Not so in the Democratic primary. The trend lines were more revealing than the actual polls numbers. Had this cycle started as early as the one in 2008 (one year before the Iowa caucus) and more debates were scheduled with the first one no later than the beginning of August, Bernie would have won.
Thanks.
I agree that Obama rolled over for Wall Street, but the 2010 GOP landslide most certainly was about the color of Obama’s skin. The overt racism was there from January 20, 2009 and was deftly manipulated by the GOP and especially its Tea Party contingent.
You’re buying into political and media noise. Had that been true, Obama would have been defeated as easily in 2012 as Congressional Democrats were in 2010. Those that bought the hype that the 2010 results were based on the color of Obama’s skin also bought the notion that Romney would win. As I found the Romney winning proposition ludicrous and never wavered from declaring after the 2010 midterms that Obama would get a second term, I clearly didn’t buy the skin color excuse/rationale for the midterm losses.
Should also add that I saw the 2010 losses at least a year early and the color of Obama’s skin was not a factor or variable in my assessment.
I do think it was performance in 2010. People expected WPA, CCC… jobs programs. And retribution on Wall St. Got ACA that Dems refused to run on anyway.
2012 Obama rooted out more base and R-money was NOT the candidate for the 99% at that particular time. Sheesh, talk about tin ear…
2014 voters sat on couches and fumed. Lowest turnout evah!
Unemployment was over 9 in 2010.
The party holding power in that situation will almost always get killed.
Only if that party isn’t seen to be working very hard to reduce unemployment through the creation of new jobs. (People seem to be getting hip to the fact that discouraged workers that have stopped pounding the pavement reduce the reported unemployment rate.)
It’s that nasty U-3 vs U-6 unemployment reporting.
U-3 Total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (official unemployment rate) 4.9%
U-6 Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force 9.6%
Real percentage of people not working like they want to.
(as of June 16)
Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey
Went from around 66% -pre crash in 2006-07 to around 62.5% 2016
Back in the 30s, it was the U6 being reported.
Yep, but then they couldn’t have as much good news For the MSM to spin, nor the ability to cut programs 10% of the people NEED.
That is just completely wrong
U6 didn’t exist in the 30’s
U3 is the closest to what was reported
Neither U3 nor U6 existed back then.
The present U3 has been tinkered with several times. Presently: “The most common measure of unemployment (known as U3) counts the number of people who are not currently working and are actively looking for a job. You’re put in that category by the BLS if you report taking active measures over the last month to find work.
Some of the changes:
In 1961, JFK removed “discouraged workers”–those folks who had quit looking for work–from the unemployment statistic.
Under Reagan, military service was reclassified from “not in the labor force” to “employed.”
In the 80s and 90s, according to Austan Goolsbee (yes, that one), “Congress began loosening the standards to qualify for disability payments …. and people who would normally be counted as unemployed started moving in record numbers into the disability system — a kind of invisible unemployment.”
JFK removed “discouraged workers” from unemployment rolls, but in 1994, the Clinton administration removed them from the labor rolls. As Kevin Phillips writes, “The longer-term discouraged–some 4 million U.S. adults–fell out of the main monthly tally.”
Beginning in ’96, the sample for measuring unemployment dropped from 60,000 to 50,000, and a disproportionate number of the dropped households were in the inner cities.
(http://www.blueoregon.com/2008/07/myth-busters-un/)
Did find this interesting blog post:
U3 and U6 Unemployment during the Great Depression
Submitted by New Deal democrat on May 12, 2009 – 8:20am
A frequent meme propounded in the economic blogosphere is that U6 unemployment, running near 17% now, is a truer measure (and there are good reasons to believe it is), so that means we have unemployment already approaching Great Depression levels of 25%. Left out of the comparison is the fact that U3 and U6 measurements didn’t exist during the 1930s. So, is the 25% unemployment peak for the Great Depression a fair comparison to U6 unemployment today?
N. Andrews compared historical versions of unemployment statistics with the modern U3 and U6 versions, published as “Historical Unemployment in Relationship to Today” , has an answer. He writes:
For the period of 1900 – 1947 we have two unemployment statistics available, Unemployed Non-Farm employees and Unemployed Civilian Workforce. These two data sets pose a challenge as they were developed during a period of ever-changing data collection methodologies. The data in the sets has been adjusted by the sources listed in Bicentennial Edition: Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 in an attempt to sync the data sets with the methodology that was put in place as of 1940 and was the basis for methodologies since. We can compare the two available data sets … and we see that the Unemployed Non-Farm employees and Unemployed Civilian Workforce measures of unemployment appear to be a close analogue of modern U3 (Unemployed Civilian Workforce) and U6 (Non-Farm employees).
Based on that research, he was able to generate a mathematical formula to calculate U3 and U6 unemployment for the entire period since 1900. He found that at the peak of the Great Depression, U3 was 25.2%. U6 was 37.6%.
http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/u3-and-u6-unemployment-during-great-depression
Um, I mentioned Hillary Clinton only in noting that Bob is not going to hold his nose and vote for her. If that’s a talking point for Hillary, it’s a mighty odd one.
In regards to your first sentence, statistics is about describing data, not about “projecting from the data to some future point in time.” In the case of an opinion poll, the “data” are sort of fuzzy, but they’re data nonetheless.
“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”–Yogi Berra
I supported Sanders in the primary, at least in regards to overall agreement with his policies, but as a registered Pacific Green (really), I had no vote in the Democratic primary. I am “pitching in” with Clinton in the general election unless I think she’s going to win by a landslide in Oregon, in which case I’ll vote Green.
Meet me for coffee some time and I’ll explain why I re-registered Green a few years ago.
So let’s dissect your lament: I have said that a lot of people on the Left dislike Clinton. A lot of polls say a lot of people to the left and the right dislike Clinton. You chose the most disliked Democratic candidate to head the ticket. You apparently disregarded it. Now you’re upset that people point this out?
By the way, Trump didn’t announce a no-fly zone over Syria while Russia was bombing al-Qaeda affiliates, and if we’re talking about Johnson (or Stein) as an alternate to the most disliked Democratic candidate in history then we’re not talking about Trump.
“That other guy might be worse.” How low the Democratic Party has sunk!
I think the most embarrassing things are yet to come, and the most embarrassing will be the Dems trying to justify all that Hilz brings with her. There will be Dems trying to justify the wars to come. There will be Dems justifying the compromises that Clinton “had to make” regarding her “donors'” interests. You own Hillary. Short coattails? You should have figured this out before now, and if you refuse to admit it, then perhaps you should be carrying out this argument with yourself in private.
When the final votes are tallied, I seriously doubt Johnson gets half the support he gets now. I’m not worried.