• AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Seriously, polls mean nothing. If you want to know what people actually think, then look at the money. Betting odds everywhere still have trump destroying her. That’s what people actually think.

      • tiramichu@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        Betting odds are influenced by other factors beyond the underlying probability, including behaviour of betters and where bets are placed.

        Take horse racing. If a horse was given a 40% chance to win but lots of people start piling money on that horse rather than any others, this creates unbalanced risk for the bookmaker as bets on one outcome need to be balanced by bets on another to ensure the bookmaker makes money.

        The bookmaker will respond to this by adjusting the odds of the popular horse upward to a higher probability, e.g. 60% And that can happen purely through market behaviour, even though nothing about the horse or the track or the race itself has changed!

        So it could be that Trump is the genuine statistical favourite. But it could also be that Republicans are just more likely to gamble and place bets on their candidate than Democrats are.

        • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Then it’s easy free money, go take it from the degenerates. Nearly all sites are offering double your money if she wins. The rates are usually dynamic, so get it while it’s hot, it may not last at such a discount once the clever betters see this steal.

          On lots of these sites, Harris has been paying half of Biden for the last 3 weeks, well before Biden even announced his retirement. Maybe the betters knew something others didn’t, maybe it was just chance…

            • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              There’s some misunderstanding of definitions going on here. A degenerate gambler is someone who repeatedly makes bad bets. According to you, you would be betting against the people making bad bets. This is what nearly all successful business is, betting against people you think you are smarter than. The real issue here is that you don’t actually believe your own comment. That’s fine, I don’t believe it either.

      • HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        You’re right, but I noticed that the odds have been shifting in Kamala’s favour. She was around +250 just a few days ago, and now she’s about +160.

        Trump is still the favourite to win (-188), but a couple debates might turn that around.

        • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Yeah, you’re absolutely right, Kamala has been rapidly catching up. It’s very exciting.

      • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Wtf… No. Don’t replace polls with a weird poll proxy. Ignore all that shit and vote.

        • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Yeah, don’t go to the places people are actually willing to risk their money. Go to the people with agendas and no evidence of who they even asked. Good one.

            • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              And yet 3 weeks ago, a bet on Harris would have paid half as much as a bet on biden. That was well before even biden announced he was stopping. People’s money says something.

              • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                With a straight face, you say if someone bets on something it’s inherently more true. Betting. An entire industry powered by the mathematical fact that most betters lose. enjoy Putin’s smegma

                • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  Prediction markets. Google it. Check out their successes. Nothing is 100%. The prediction markets have been saying for almost a month th that Harris as president is twice as likely as Biden. Think about it.

              • Magnor@lemmy.magnor.ovh
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                4 months ago

                Holy shit am I really reading an argument about using bets to forecast an election?

                The part of my brain doing math just spontaneously combusted.

                • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  Well, it isn’t fool proof, but somehow, most major prediction markets were saying a harris win was twice as likely as a biden win almost a month ago. If you were asked a month ago who was more likely to win in 2024, would you have said biden or Harris? Probably biden, right? So maybe there is something to them. It’s just an interesting thing. You don’t have to think they are 100%, the world is never that absolute.

          • Billiam@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Ah yes, because the wealthy gambling their wealth for the adrenaline high has never happened in the history of ever.

            Ever heard of a card game called chemin de fer?

            • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              This has nothing to do with the wealthy. It’s an interesting observation that the markets called biden dropping out a month before biden announced it.

      • Xanis@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        A reminder, folks: That a mathematical justification must exist for polls to stay in business. They work off of weight ratios, and if one thing is more likely according to a calculation, they weight that and ratio the bets to be less profitable for those who bet on it.

        Polls attempt to weight real-world data and adjust using, you guessed it, mathematical justification. In general, counting the total number of people in a room is more precise than estimating a percentage and working in some flavor text.

        • Windex007@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          *That’s what people who’s entire profession is establishing likelihood of outcomes think.

          Oddsmakers are often wrong, but over the long term, they’re more often right, it’s the entire basis of how they make money.

          Polls are just polls. Oddsmakers literally are putting thier money where their mouth is. If you’re confident they’re wrong, take the bet. They WANT you to.

          Edit: after reading the great responses, I think I’m sorely underestimating the volume of bets and how keeping both sides betting against eachother in this case is the strongest factor in the current odds.

          • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            As if polls aren’t designed and administered by people who know what they’re doing, and it doesn’t make them right. There never will be a way to accurately predict the future so why try? Vote.

            • Windex007@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Polls are surveys. They answer the question “what do people say they’re going to do?”

              Extrapolating results strictly from polling comes with a pretty large caveat: it assumes people are going to do what they say they’re going to do.

              Another large caveat is that there are issues with representation, as the group of people who will actually answer their phone is a pretty serious demographic skew.

              Oddsmakers use polling results as a COMPONENT of their determination, but they’re free to aggregate against whatever else they see as relevant, things like history. Or to weigh which states polling is most effective. Or how which day of the week affects voter turnout on a per district level. Or how projected road closures could affect transit and therefore turnout rates.

              Anyways, I think the entire point of my initial comment was lost:

              If you’re excited about the polling, awesome… BUT DON’T GET COMPLACENT AND STILL GO VOTE. Why? Because the people who actually get paid to project outcomes think it’ll be a Hillary re-run, and if you don’t want that, you can NOT get complacent. You can’t let your friends get complacent. Be the reason the oddsmakers lose money in November.

              • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                I think we’re on the same page about what matters. I just don’t really put any stock in any prediction after what happened in 2016.

                And yes I have heard the explanations and how actually the polls weren’t as wrong as they seemed at first glance. I just see zero reason to put any stock in them. I’m voting either way and I’ll encourage others to.

                I’d love it if everyone at least was skeptical of polls because that’s a stance you can’t go wrong with.

                • Windex007@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  I think the availability of polling is a major reason why people don’t bother to vote. If they’re reasonably sure their person will win, they’re less likely to bother. Or, if it looks like it’s going to be a blowout and they don’t think one vote will matter, same thing.

                  Voting day should be a federal holiday, there should be a tax incentive to vote like in Australia, and polling reporting should be delayed by 1 month.

          • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            What were the odds Biden won in 2020? Did these same “expert oddsmakers” favor him or Trump?

            Check the quality of your authority figures before you go all in on arguing they are right.

          • enkers@sh.itjust.works
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            4 months ago

            I don’t think that’s how that works.

            If people predominantly bet for one side, the odds have to lower so the house still wins in either case. Basically, there has to be enough taken in on all other options to cover the payout of any winning option.

            If there’s no selection bias in betting skill level of the players, then the betting odds should roughly reflect the actual probability. But if one side’s bet has no basis in reality, then the odds can get very skewed.

            And in those cases, it’s not the oddsmakers that are wrong, it’s the betters. The house always wins.

            • tiramichu@lemm.ee
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              4 months ago

              Exactly.

              In a horse race, punters tend to spread bets across horses with no bias or favouritism - they place the bet because they want to make money, not because they are invested in the outcome.

              In a political race, people bet for one team because they are ideologically aligned and want to show support.

              If Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to gamble and place bets on their candidate, this creates market pressure and the odds for a Republican win will increase (I.e. get more likely) as a result of that.

        • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Prediction markets like we are talking about only change based on the bets that other betters have made. Pure prediction markets don’t even take a hosting cut, but most aren’t pure, so a percent or so goes to the inferstructure costs. It isn’t like a traditional Vegas sports book when the house picks horrible odds that you can take or leave where they know they will win.

          • hydrospanner@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Honest question:

            Since we have a body of results-driven data to refer to in this case:

            How often has Vegas correctly called election results 3 months out?

            I’m not passing judgement on placing stock in betting odds (nor am I willing to give them any credit) unless I see some data that suggests they’re getting it right a vast majority of the time.

            • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              I was referring to prediction markets, not betting against the house in Vegas. With prediction markets, the odds are directly dependent on the bets other people make. They have a phenomenal record, and there have been lots of studies done on them. The most relevant recent one is that nearly every market has had Harris as being twice as likely as winning for nearly the last month. Most people just found out a few days ago that biden was dropping out. Somehow, this was already shown in pretty much every prediction market. When peoples money is on the line, in a large group, they tend to be quite good at predicting things.

        • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          Yeah this is always the dumbest argument in a thread filled with dumb arguments. As if a bunch of degenerate gamblers have some mystical vision on the issue.

    • aodhsishaj@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Pasted my comment from elsewhere here to support the argument.

      The way in which most polls are conducted is often biased towards older voters as they’re often phone calls. How many young people are answering phonecalls from unknown numbers? Also the sources pollsters get their numbers from are also often biased as well.

      Here’s a report from Pew Research who make their money from polls, so this is the rosiest of takes on it https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/09/21/does-public-opinion-polling-about-issues-still-work/

      Here’s a take from the Times and what they’re trying to do about it. I’ve pasted the archive.is link https://archive.is/sQ5Vi

      And here’s a report from journalists that doesn’t profit from polling https://theweek.com/politics/2024-election-polls-accuracy

    • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Yes. But at the same time, Project 2025, and Trump’s Cheetoh-stained fingerprints all over it, are finally starting to get some popular attention, and that’s not a popular idea.

    • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Yeah, don’t stop the massacre in Palestine. Things are great right now, don’t change a thing. Wtf is wrong with people…

      • cabron_offsets@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Well, some people are utter fucktards who don’t understand that we’re living a trolley problem, wherein the only choice is the death of many, or the death of many more.

        • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Yeah, are all those camps full of kids that keep getting bombed really a massive threat? Have they really got you so brainwashed that you are actually thinking that since Palestinian babies may grow up to be terrorists we have to kill them in the name of the almighty trolley?

            • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Who did Tump bomb? Do you think he bombed more or less than biden? How about bush? Or the other bush? Or Clinton? Or any president in the last 100 or so years? Why is it that you are terrified of an evil fascist that never bombed any innocent people in foreign lands?

              Maybe you’re the one being fucked buster.

              • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
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                4 months ago

                How about bush

                You mean the guy who started an illegal war in Iraq who had no connection to 9/11 or have any WMDs? That Bush?

                • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  Yes, that bush. The murderous warmongering asshole. Exactly that one. That’s the one I am referring to. The one that hopefully gets a special hell made for him and everyone who does the kind of shit that he did. Like Biden, Bush’s daddy, Clinton, Obama, Regan…

            • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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              3 months ago

              Nah, this one is a troll. You can tell because the account is pretty much 100% political agitation. Even passionate activists occasionally post about other stuff.

          • Zetta@mander.xyz
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            4 months ago

            Bruh are you stupid? Trump would probably go kill some Palestinians himself for fun, both options don’t give a fuck about Palestine. One option is just way worse for Americans.

            • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Tell me that time that Trump dropped bombs on anyone. I’ll wait. It will be much harder then if you try to do this for bush or Regan or Clinton or biden or Obama or any other president you or your parents lived through. Let that sink in. The super evil viole t fascist is the only president who didn’t drop bombs on any innocent civilians. Does that really add up for you?

                • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  I didn’t lie about shit. Work on reading comprehension. He supported way fewer bombs ings and war than almost any president in the last 100 years. This is easily checked. The evil fascist murdering president so ehow has a more peaceful track record than any you can find. The only response you have is to make up arguments to fight against. That should tell you something. It won’t, but it should.

              • mbtrhcs@feddit.org
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                4 months ago

                Trump literally used the word Palestinian as a derogatory insult in the debate, if that’s not enough for you to get the hint you are beyond help my guy

                • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  The fact is that all you have is that people told you that Trump used “Palestinian” as a derogatory term and that on the other side, biden has been mercilessly providing bombs to blow the hell out of Palestinians for almost a year. For me, I would much rather my name be used as a slander than have my whole family turned into applesauce. I guess some people really care more about supposed name-calling, though.

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            4 months ago

            What the fucking hell are you babbling about? No one is saying this irrelevant shit.

            Edit: see the thread below if you’re interested in seeing how dedicated they are to lying to help trump. But I wouldn’t recommend it, it’s depressing

            • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              There was just some idiot saying we gotta bomb homel3ss children because of the “trolley problem”, if that wasn’t you, then don’t worry about it.

              • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                That is not even remotely what they said and you know it. Stop discouraging Democratic voters if you care an iota about Palestine. I suspect you don’t though

                • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  I have absolutely no faith that Harris will stop the free money and bombs to Israel. At least Trump says he wants to stop giving them money and make it be loans. A step up is a step up. He’s still rubbish though, just less so than the current hypocritical dems. Giving endless blank checks to someone you say you oppose is utter trash.

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        4 months ago

        Wtf is wrong with people…

        Is a great question for you to ask yourself a little more personally

      • VinnyDaCat@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It’s time to move on. There isn’t any President who will stand in Israel’s way of the horrors they’re enacting in Palestine.

        For now we work to prevent Trump from furthering Israel’s genocide even more or committing worse here in our own country. Unless you’re one of those people who genuinely believes in accelerationism which isn’t going to work out the way you think it will.

        • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          I’m sure if biden gets in office and he manages to get isreal to cool down, then you will just acredit it to all the great work dems did. There is literally nothing that can change the mind of people who let their ego and their politics get all intertwined.

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        4 months ago

        You would rather change to the guy that’s going to send even more bombs?

        US Democrats at least sometimes pretend to care about having a negative image.

        Until the US fixes their atrocious voting system they are stuck with choosing between “same massacre” and “worse massacre”.

        • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Yeah, he will send more bombs according to the people who also just look at thr floor and mumble whenever you bring up the fact that he bombed fewer people than almost any president that anyone alive today has ever personally witnessed. I get that you’ve been told he will morph into a super killer, but when you have one person who’s actually done it, and someone else who hasn’t, going against your observations is just kinda wacky.

          • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            he bombed fewer people than almost any president that anyone alive today

            Oh a second ago he bombed zero people. Wonder why the inconsistency. It’s a mystery.

                • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  Yes, I misspoke, he also supplied some bombs that killed some people, but his whole career doesn’t match an average week of Biden or bush or any other president any of us have seen in our lives.

              • Lupus@feddit.org
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                4 months ago

                an evil fascist that never bombed any innocent people in foreign lands?

                You, 2hrs ago.

                • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  You’re right, I must have mispoke. I think he did about 1 days worth of Biden bombing in his 4 years in office.

          • blaue_Fledermaus@mstdn.io
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            4 months ago

            He will according to his own professed and acted stance on Israel.
            You say it like he already wasn’t a super killer during his first term?
            I’m not USian, but my country had a Trump-wannabe as president, so I know very well how it is.

            • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Who did trump bomb? Show me a clip where trump says he will bomb palestine. Ill wait. I’m not talking about that time when he said he could end it fast that people with nothing else pretend can only mean a basket full of nukes.

              • blaue_Fledermaus@mstdn.io
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                4 months ago

                He kept arming Israel at least the same as previous presidents, so certainly some of the bombs being used now were given by him. And he also supported the Zionists in the Israeli government.

                • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  He gave a single digit percentage of bombs that got detonated when compared to biden.

              • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Show me a clip where trump says he will bomb palestine. Ill wait.

                Show us a clip where Biden said he would bomb Palestine. We’ll wait.

                • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  If you don’t know about all the support and weapons that biden has been giving since October, then you are just late to the conversation, and you have a bunch of catching up to do. This isn’t in any way a disputed thing.

      • chakan2@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        You know what would stop the massacre in Palestine…a ceasefire. Hamas isn’t going to let that happen, and the Palestinian population largely supports them. It’s not for the US to fix anymore.

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          4 months ago

          If you honestly believed this, then you would act based on it. That action would be a hell of a lot more than a vote that may or may not ever even be counted. I wonder how much you actually believe it.

        • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          It is a tough situation. I’m a huge believer in honest discourse. I think the more people are completely honest, the better, even if the other side lies. What we generally have now is two large factions that both believe they have a duty to hide any negative things about their own team, and desperately try to exaggerate any good things about their own side. This just results in nearly nobody involved in the discussion being honest, and both sides feeling like their own lies are justified “because the other side lies too, and we have to lie to trick undecided people into joining our side”.

          When lemmy was younger, there was so much more honest discourse. It was fantastic. Unfortunately, it has largely slipped into the same echo chamber garbage as so many other networks. It does nobody any good when people just come on, lie about their side, and downvote anyone who mentions things that happened that make their team look bad. This just makes people start to believe their own lies over time, which makes it even harder for either side to even be able to understand the other sides point of view.

          • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            You have much more power than your vote. You have your honest discussion(instead of lying to “trick” people into thinking your candidate is amazing). You have what you choose to do with your money. I never told anyone not to vote. I never told anyone to vote for the lying stealing rapist felon trump.

                • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  Right, it’s more so. I’ve been naive enough to doubt its prevalence but people like you are helping to change that belief

  • elgordino@fedia.io
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    4 months ago

    On a national poll the dems need to be about 5 points ahead to be in with a shot of taking the electoral college.

    This is a step in the right direction, lots of work to do though. I’m hopeful the more folks see of Harris, rather than their pre-existing largely meme originated opinions, the more they’ll like her.

    • 242@lemmy.cafe
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      4 months ago

      No, they just need to be about 1% ahead in each of the the seven or eight swing states.

          • CatsGoMOW@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Typically that’s how it works out. It’s not like it’s a hard and fast rule… but it’s generally pretty close.

          • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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            4 months ago

            They do when you take into account that democrats traditionally vastly over perform in their stronghold states like NY and CA in a way that’s inefficient for the electoral college. It’s why democrats usually win the popular vote even if they lose the election.

    • morphballganon@lemmynsfw.com
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      4 months ago

      Maybe Harris will spank him so hard in the debate that a bunch of republicans will stay home instead of voting at all

    • MagicShel@programming.dev
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      4 months ago

      I think this number is a little high, but I really want to see a blowout so this is a great goal. The number I heard was about 3%.

  • Nobody@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Harris is going to win. Everyone has been wondering what she’s been doing as VP this entire time. She’s been preparing to step up, win this election, and be an effective President.

  • InternetUser2012@lemmy.today
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    3 months ago

    That smell you’re smelling right now is a combination of republikkklown tears, and FEAR. (and maybe a little bit of cheap shit beer)

  • Wxnzxn@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    Polls are shit and only snapshots of an overall vibe-like probability - but this is still a very, very good sign.

    I hope the people that were adamant about claiming that criticising Biden and urging him to drop out was in some way “bot”-behaviour or traitorous, or just claimed by tankie accelerationists, or whatever, realise that it was more often than not really based on concern of Biden not being able to win. The energy that suddenly got unleashed in this election campaign in just a few days and these new polls clearly show, that there was something to the concerns we had with Biden.

    Not saying you were stupid or something for having the perspective you had, there were arguments to be had after all, incumbency bonus and the risk of having a new candidate so close to the election were things to be considered. But from what I witnessed, the discourse got really toxic at times and from at least some people. No, not everyone that wanted to replace Biden was a useful idiot or someone acting in bad faith. There were clear reasons, and in this case, things are very much starting to look like they were valid and good reasons, too. Enthusiasm is really fucking important in election campaigns, and Biden was a black hole sucking any enthusiasm out of any potential campaign.

    Of course, there’s still work to be had ahead. But things are looking a lot better right now, and maybe another Trump presidency, this time with his fascist cronies being prepared fto properly enact fundamental changes for the worse, can be avoided yet. I’m still fairly pessimistic for the future, and would advise anyone to organise along radical leftist lines (IWW, SRA and local mutual help groups look to me like some of the best organisations at the moment in the US, speaking as a European outsider who may not have the full picture) and connect in networks that are prepared to react to the repression and chaos still on the horizon, but getting a few more years to do that organising while the global crises continue to march on is worth a lot.

  • paddirn@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Encouraging momentum that hopefully has given Dems the jolt they needed, but alot can happen between now and November.

  • Clbull@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Funny thing is, if Harris gets elected, the Simpsons prophecy of the first female president succeeding Trump will (kinda) come true.