2021 Election Cycle

[AWS260]

The Times calls the NY Mayor's race for Eric Adams.

No real surprise there.

JFC this guy. The next four (at least) years are going to be so dumb.

[Smoove_B]

For a guy that did a lot of work to distance himself from Trump while campaigning, he sure is comfortable using the same language:

“Our team is making sure every legal vote is counted..."

[malchior]

The political environment almost always moves against the party in power, and Virginia in particular has a long history of electing governors from the opposition party (and in fact the Biden 2020 --> McAuliffe 2021 shift towards the GOP was signifcantly smaller than the Obama 2008 --> Deeds 2009 shift). So like, in many ways this is politics in general.

Maybe but that still doesn't explain what happened elsewhere like NJ which saw a complete collapse of Biden's coalition since last year, Long Island, and even in Brooklyn. If it was just a "VA is quirky story" alone that would be sound. However, we have a confluence of other like events where they make less sense. That's a bit of a flag that there might be a bigger trend/movement happening.

But that's exactly the problem. Political trends seem to be mostly working normally, which is a massive problem because: (1) Democrats are dealing with massive and growing structural disadvantages; and (2) Republicans don't seem to be paying a significant price for radicalizing and for embracing a would-be dictator who openly tried to overturn an election via violence. That's a big, big problem.

The worst part about 2 is that when you talk to people many see #2 as not real or believe that 1/6 was not too bad or a one-time abberative event. So we'll probably just stumble over the threshold swearing it couldn't happen here. It seems certain they'll be telling us it didn't happen.

[Octavious]

For a guy that did a lot of work to distance himself from Trump while campaigning, he sure is comfortable using the same language:

“Our team is making sure every legal vote is counted..."

Ya sounds like he's not going to go out quietly. So I guess anytime a Republican loses we'll be dragged into recalls and courts. Good to know.

[Kraken]

The political environment almost always moves against the party in power, and Virginia in particular has a long history of electing governors from the opposition party (and in fact the Biden 2020 --> McAuliffe 2021 shift towards the GOP was signifcantly smaller than the Obama 2008 --> Deeds 2009 shift). So like, in many ways this is politics in general.

Maybe but that still doesn't explain what happened elsewhere like NJ which saw a complete collapse of Biden's coalition since last year, Long Island, and even in Brooklyn. If it was just a "VA is quirky story" alone that would be sound. However, we have a confluence of other like events where they make less sense. That's a bit of a flag that there might be a bigger trend/movement happening.

NJ's governor was the first sitting Dem to win reelection since 1977. Even though he just squeaked it out, he bucked a 44-year trend.

[malchior]

The political environment almost always moves against the party in power, and Virginia in particular has a long history of electing governors from the opposition party (and in fact the Biden 2020 --> McAuliffe 2021 shift towards the GOP was signifcantly smaller than the Obama 2008 --> Deeds 2009 shift). So like, in many ways this is politics in general.

Maybe but that still doesn't explain what happened elsewhere like NJ which saw a complete collapse of Biden's coalition since last year, Long Island, and even in Brooklyn. If it was just a "VA is quirky story" alone that would be sound. However, we have a confluence of other like events where they make less sense. That's a bit of a flag that there might be a bigger trend/movement happening.

NJ's governor was the first sitting Dem to win reelection since 1977. Even though he just squeaked it out, he bucked a 44-year trend.

Sure but he was up by 10+ points only a couple of months ago and the polls crashed over the last couple of weeks. The idea of the 44-year trend is kind of funny to me but mostly irrelevant trivia in my book. That is a 4 or 5 election thing that happened over almost a half century. Is that really predictive? I have my doubts. Instead, Murphy's support flagged around the same time as some of the the other races. They might be indepedent and just coincedence but again that is a little at odds with what we saw elsewhere. We saw abnormally high side turnout on the GOP side in several races compared to other years.

The NJ race and a couple of the NY local races are a bit interesting control cases too because they had little media coverage really. Yet still they correlates with the race in VA. It is interesting and I look forward to some deep dives once we get final results.

[Octavious]

Honestly at this point I think we need to stop paying attention to polls. They are garbage and likely doing damage. You don't think there are people that say oh look he's up 12 points I'm not bothering to go out? Now for all the Sweeney supporters that was a good thing.

[malchior]

12% is like hundreds of thousands of votes. That'd be a lot of discouraging!

Seriously though I think polls have real positives. Por emplejo if there were no polls, elections become point in time things with little context. I could see some debate over whether that is good or bad but I think we need them to understand what is happening under the hood.

[Kraken]

I'm just saying keep it in perspective. VA always dumps governors from the ruling party, and they did it again. NJ doesn't reelect Democrats, yet they did this time. Maybe it's not the disaster that's being spun.

Sure, the Dems are foundering and Biden looks more like Carter than FDR right now. They'll almost surely lose the House, as the ruling party nearly always does. But they have a little time left to change the narrative before the debt ceiling debacle and campaign season preempt governance. Salvage the skeleton of Biden's agenda AND protect voting rights before it's too late, and they won't look so much like the gang that couldn't shoot straight. Fail to do those things, and they deserve the spanking they'll get.

[malchior]

I'm just saying keep it in perspective. VA always dumps governors from the ruling party, and they did it again. NJ doesn't reelect Democrats, yet they did this time. Maybe it's not the disaster that's being spun.

My basic disagreement is what "perspective" is. This sort of conventional wisdom tends to be based a bit on a biased data set. To contrast, we have detailed data about VA voting preferences based on polling leading up to the election, exit polls, etc. The other data set is this folksy 'No Democratic governor has been re-elected in 44-years' / 'VA swings against the party in power' data set which is *very small*. That biases small factors. Very few elections actually match up with this criteria in any given period.

I find it personally unconvincing as a predictive element or a good basis for perspective. In fact, with our political system distorting everything I'll pose a thought experiment. Why would a sparse data over 44-years be predictive or provide useful context? 44-years ago we are talking about a world where the Republican party looks nothing like the one it is now (as Beau spoke to in that video posted yesterday). It just doesn't make a whole ton of sense when you really think about it.

Anyway that's all I'm getting at by challenging that idea. Instead when you look in the volume of data we have (which I'll caveat again is still not completely settled) we see a larger trend that is counter to any analysis centered on normative politics. It is simply way more complicated and Americans seem to want simple answers to things instead of embracing the complexity. I get it. We don't want to get into the details but I maintain you'll always be surprised if you don't look beyond the thin analysis we are presented. That isn't a dig at anyone in particular but it just drives me crazy as a person trained as a data scientist. It is like we have volumes of detailed weather data but someone pulls out the Farmer's Almanac and talks about how right it was because today's page happened to match up with a current condition.

Sure, the Dems are foundering and Biden looks more like Carter than FDR right now. They'll almost surely lose the House, as the ruling party nearly always does. But they have a little time left to change the narrative before the debt ceiling debacle and campaign season preempt governance. Salvage the skeleton of Biden's agenda AND protect voting rights before it's too late, and they won't look so much like the gang that couldn't shoot straight. Fail to do those things, and they deserve the spanking they'll get.

Agreed but the outcome of the simple analysis above leads to things like the NY Times saying the BBB agenda is too extreme and people voted to move to the center. (Today's edition btw). It's just mindnumbing in its inanity. The data IMO doesn't show much of a move to the center in VA.

In essence, McAullife was a centrist. He wasn't even selling the progressive policies from what I understood. Though he was certainly going to be linked to them in some degree in reality. Youngkin soft sold the same extreme right policies the GOP has been selling. The problem is that the Overton window keeps shifting to the right as the Republicans slam hard right and the Democrats stretch out to encompass the middle to left. A vote for the Republican is a vote for a hard, right coalition versus one that is definitively purple-ish in theory.

Still the data has strong indicators that they surged to the polls based on a ginned up racism adjacent narrative and were driven by anger/fear. And in that frame our very serious people are doing their best to try to paper over significant risks to our democracy by downplaying that in favor of a tired 'move to the center' counterfactual narrative. I wish I understood why.

[Little Raven]

Good news for New Jersey!

Democratic New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney, who is projected to lose his bid for reelection against a little-known truck driver, is talking about "recently found" ballots to support his refusal to concede the race.

The defiant incumbent released a statement to the Philadelphia Inquirer on Thursday that explained why he is not ready to admit defeat to his Republican challenger.

“The results from Tuesday’s election continue to come in, for instance there were 12,000 ballots recently found in one county,” Sweeney said in an email, not naming the county. “While I am currently trailing in the race, we want to make sure every vote is counted. Our voters deserve that, and we will wait for the final results.”

[hepcat]

Sigh…this is the new norm. Don’t like losing? Just say you were cheated and never admit you lost.

This shit is my biggest concern. Elections could become meaningless within the next few years.

[malchior]

IMO Sweeney's tone is not very close to what much of the GOP is doing. It's a relatively tight loss and he'll probably lose yet. It isn't certified yet so he isn't in crazy land...and let's hope that doesn't happen.

[Smoove_B]

Murphy's campaign released a statement this morning indicating it's mathematically impossible for Ciattarelli to win at this point (based on what's been counted), so all that would be left is alleging fraud; they've asked him to concede.

Let's see what happens.

[Octavious]

Conceding is so 2016! There's really no way he can win unless they claim tons of fraud. I really pray they don't go that direction as it's f'n ridiculous. That's all I see from right wing people. Oddly they seem fine with the VA election. Wonder why?

[em2nought]

I don't understand where all the (D) voters went that just flooded the ballots in 2020.

Maybe the guy who stuffed the ballot boxes last time refused to get his vaccine so they fired him.

Apparently he was in New Jersey filling out an additional 12,000 ballots. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news ... uck-driver

[hepcat]

Good for him. At the next secret meeting of the He Man Trump Hater’s Club, we’ll have to give him a standing ovation for trying to save our country.

[Smoove_B]

"I hate to lose ... but I'm also someone who believes strongly in our republic ... I see no proof that this election was stolen" -- it's the absolute bare minimum, but credit to Jack Ciattarelli for saying this during his concession speech

[Octavious]

How nice of him to say that. Jesus the bar is so low now.

[El Guapo]

Worth listening to the end. He criticizes the vote counting process that leads to votes still being counted 10 days out of election day, and how that contributes to conspiracy theories around election results. He has a solid point (though I don't know the specific "recently passed law" that he's referring to). What's problematic is not just the length of vote counting, but that there's a lack of consistent reporting on what votes in any area are counted / not counted, which makes it difficult for anyone to project confidently who is winning in a close election.

We do need to figure out ways to improve vote counting (especially the speed). Though that's an area where having all parties committed to democracy would help a lot.

[LordMortis]

We do need to figure out ways to improve vote counting (especially the speed). Though that's an area where having all parties committed to democracy would help a lot.

Attempts to do so (in Michigan) are constantly attacked in court and in Lansing by... The state GOP legislature, the state GOP committee, the Chamber of Commerce... They then go 1984 and try to define voting improvements solely by things they use to control, retain, and build their voting block. They're full blown off the deep end in to waging a false war in the courts in my state and they welcome outside interference.

[Smoove_B]

He has a solid point (though I don't know the specific "recently passed law" that he's referring to). What's problematic is not just the length of vote counting, but that there's a lack of consistent reporting on what votes in any area are counted / not counted, which makes it difficult for anyone to project confidently who is winning in a close election.

Murphy (ahead of the 2020 election) updated the law regarding mail-in votes saying they could not be counted ahead of election day. So here in NJ, your ability to vote by mail increased dramatically but the county registrars couldn't start counting until the ballots were officially open for everyone. It absolutely slowed things down, but I can also appreciate how they don't want to influence the election either by having them counted ahead of time and word gets out that a candidate or party is seeing heavy support so the other side needs to show up and slam the ballot boxes.

This all comes back to Trump and his insistence that voting ends at 8pm or 9pm (whatever happens in each state) and that unless the votes are in before then, it doesn't count (somehow). Add to that the idea that mailed in votes are invalid because of Democrat voter fraud (whatever that means) and there is a narrative that we need to know the election results by 8am the day after or it's all a lie.

[malchior]

Worth listening to the end. He criticizes the vote counting process that leads to votes still being counted 10 days out of election day, and how that contributes to conspiracy theories around election results. He has a solid point (though I don't know the specific "recently passed law" that he's referring to). What's problematic is not just the length of vote counting, but that there's a lack of consistent reporting on what votes in any area are counted / not counted, which makes it difficult for anyone to project confidently who is winning in a close election.

We do need to figure out ways to improve vote counting (especially the speed). Though that's an area where having all parties committed to democracy would help a lot.

From a technical point of view I agree we could/should count faster. It'd be helpful if they had one less thing to point at as an issue but this isn't even central to the core problem. If this didn't happen they'd just make up something else. It's all about grievance at this point.

[Jaymann]

Worth listening to the end. He criticizes the vote counting process that leads to votes still being counted 10 days out of election day, and how that contributes to conspiracy theories around election results. He has a solid point (though I don't know the specific "recently passed law" that he's referring to). What's problematic is not just the length of vote counting, but that there's a lack of consistent reporting on what votes in any area are counted / not counted, which makes it difficult for anyone to project confidently who is winning in a close election.

We do need to figure out ways to improve vote counting (especially the speed). Though that's an area where having all parties committed to democracy would help a lot.

From a technical point of view I agree we could/should count faster. It'd be helpful if they had one less thing to point at as an issue but this isn't even central to the core problem. If this didn't happen they'd just make up something else. It's all about grievance at this point.

Exactly. If Biden had been announced as a clear winner as soon as the polls closed, the response would not have been any different by Florida Man.

[El Guapo]

Worth listening to the end. He criticizes the vote counting process that leads to votes still being counted 10 days out of election day, and how that contributes to conspiracy theories around election results. He has a solid point (though I don't know the specific "recently passed law" that he's referring to). What's problematic is not just the length of vote counting, but that there's a lack of consistent reporting on what votes in any area are counted / not counted, which makes it difficult for anyone to project confidently who is winning in a close election.

We do need to figure out ways to improve vote counting (especially the speed). Though that's an area where having all parties committed to democracy would help a lot.

From a technical point of view I agree we could/should count faster. It'd be helpful if they had one less thing to point at as an issue but this isn't even central to the core problem. If this didn't happen they'd just make up something else. It's all about grievance at this point.

Yeah I'm just saying that what Citrarelli (sp) says in this seems perfectly reasonable to me. But like I said, actually addressing this would require a GOP that's actually interested in fair elections procedures, and not just about their own power.