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Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

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Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#131

Democrats want to subjugate. The anti-globalist portion of the Republican party (the one that elected Trump) just wants to get the hell away and have their own country. Split the country apart - let the coasts go, we will have the middle, let them have a northern corridor. It's time to break up, we want nothing to do with you. This is not a debate - we want to leave. My grandfather, and many other GIs would have drop…

We've banned this account - this is an example of the ideological flaming that this site is not for.

For anyone worried about bias, same applies the other way - e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25016654

Please (all/any of you) do not create accounts to break HN's guidelines with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#132

Shouldn't we wait for the states to go through , in some cases, mandatory recounts and certification of the results and then the actual electoral college vote after any legal appeals?

No, that’s never been a requirement for news media. California was called within 10 minutes of polls closing because it was expected to be a mathematical improbability of a Republican win in that state. Whenever a state gets called (and inevitably therefore the presidency), it is done because the math nerds at the media organizations put the odds of the other party winning outside the realm of what can realistically be achieved in the opinion of the analysts. There is no legal requirement to be eventually correct in your calls.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#133

Completely independently of who won/will win this election, I find it massively irresponsible that media outlets are calling it before actual states are. The media should report the news, not make it.

That's how it's done in most countries in Europe as well in my experience. To be clear in the end it's not what the media say that matters, it's the certified vote counts but those come in often much later. In this case I believe that some states like Alaska will be counting ballots well into next week.

It makes sense to call the race once the lead is considered significant enough that the remaining ballots can't statistically change the outcome.

A good counterexample in this election is Arizona, that's been called early for Biden by some outlets (AP and Fox News IIRC) but is still considered to be potentially winnable by Trump by the others. In this case it is possible that AP and Fox were a bit too trigger happy.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#134
post #106

I just realized that Trump could become presidential candidate again in 2024 for a second term. So it might not be over yet.

Zero chance the Republican Party would endorse someone who lost a national election. Arizona Republicans are no-doubt regretting putting a one-time loser in a position to lose yet again.[0]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_McSally

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#135

On the data nerd side I continue to be shocked at how people misinterpret the certainty of polls/forecasts. Forecasts give us probability distributions based on historical polling error data. Not infallible predictions the expected value will 100% happen. It’s fairly revealing of society’s general innumeracy, just as it was 4 years ago when Trump won.

I'm on the nerd side too, but I was quite surprised. Sampling isn't the only source of error in election polling - people also change their minds. In this election, people decided who they were going to vote for historically early - the lowest portion of people in the history of exit polls indicated they decided in the week before the election. In theory, this effect should reduce the width of the probability distribution, and yet, the polls were off again, in the same direction as they are always off, by a little bit more than average.

A little scrutiny here is worthwhile. In 2016, for example, the polls were off in part because pollsters weighted the black demographic in proportion to their voting behavior in 2008 and 2012 (when a black candidate was running, boosting turnout). The actual 2016 black turnout looked more similar to 2004 or 2000 - other elections where a black candidate wasn't running. Though I haven't dived into the 2020 polling data, it wouldn't surprise me if a similar effect were at play.

It's also become noticeable harder to do polling. Once upon a time, everybody had a landline, so random dialing worked really well. Now, some people have more phones than others, and people are increasingly less willing to talk to pollsters, increasing the error rate.

These are all important things to talk about - when you dismiss it as "oh yeah, polls are never perfect," you prematurely shut down the conversation. Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. The polls could be better and it's important to talk about how.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#136

Completely independently of who won/will win this election, I find it massively irresponsible that media outlets are calling it before actual states are. The media should report the news, not make it.

What if you look at "calling a race" as "reporting on the underlying mathematical trajectories based off of empirical vote evidence"?

Given I believe that's an accurate description of what's involved in a news organization calling a race, they're not making the news, but reporting it, albeit in a form that makes it more palatable to the average reader.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#137

How does this election relate to the 2000 election when all media called Gore the winner, but then in December, Bush became the president elect? https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2020/11/04/the... "On election night, it was unclear who had won, with the electoral votes of the state of Florida still undecided. The returns showed that Bush had won Florida by such a close margin that state law required a rec…

What do you mean "all media called Gore the winner"? I can't find any evidence of that. According to Wikipedia [1], "on November 8 ... the networks declared that Bush had carried Florida and therefore been elected president. ... after all votes were counted, ... the networks retracted their declarations that Bush had won Florida and the presidency".

Also, note that Gore privately conceded the election that night, but retracted it after further counting due to the So in fact major networks (including CNN, ABC, FOX) initially called Bush the winner, but retracted that afterwards due to the possibility of a recount.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidentia...

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#138
What is really keeping me up at night is the existential problem the US faces for the next 50 years: the ever increasingly large divide that is the polarizing of the electorate. We have to come together as Americans or someone will divide and conquer us.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#139
post #83

Interesting fact I noticed: If Biden is to take the presidency after the Electoral Collage voted that would make him the oldest president to take office yet, also interesting that wikipedia already marked Biden as president-elect [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_Unit...

Undoubtedly a significant consideration for VP choice (Harris in this case) is the statistical likelihood that a 78-82 year old might pass away from natural causes some time in the next four years.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#140
I’m censored on HN because I subscribe to wrongthink.

@dang declared that no matter how calmly and politely I stated mainstream conservative positions, I’m an inherent flame war because the audience wants me silenced.

This is here to stay.

Edit:

Looks like @dang beat me to a citation, but I’d invite readers to review my post history in general.

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