The AL-SEN Class 2 special election - polling, stats and history

Alabama in 1950s-1970s voted for Nixon and Kennedy and Goldwater and Carter and then Reagan by 2 points, if anything it did not have any partisan bias at that time which the election of Reagan by a small margin confirmed.

At any rate... while a layman can of course find an anecdotal example of just about anything if he looks hard enough and draw all sorts of false conclusions, the scientific approach is quite different and is based on heavy skepticism, a data point deviating drastically from all other available data is considered suspect, is by default viewed as an outlier and aberration until future research collaborates its validity (or in 99.99% proves it invalid).

I am frankly surprised that your professors and/or mentors have not explained these simple scientific methods and principles to you. I am not in the least surprised that you don't report (or trash) polls showing Moore pulling ahead. Par for the course for your leftist partisan spin masquerading as "objective" statistics.

 

Indeed.... and with Moore in senate assuring republican majority and implementation of Trump's agenda during 2018, I am sure your brilliant "winning by losing" strategy will pay huge dividends and you'll win another "moral" victory in 2018, while the republicans will have to be content with keeping their seats

 

The somewhat sloppily organized info that you provided in your first paragraph is already in the OP. Did you know that?

In parting, I don't care what surprises you or not. Your person is totally unimportant to me in every possible way. Debate and exchange of information is what is important to me here in this forum - neither of which you can provide. Again, I provide data when I feel like it. I am under no obligation to hold myself to a schedule for you or for anyone. It's called freedom, you know. I know, I know, that is a concept that is very antithetical to people who hold tight to fascist thinking. I am wondering, if you hold any tighter, you might break hand soon.

So, I wish I could say it was interesting having this tit-for-tat with you, but actually, it was boring as all get out.

On to ignore with you.

 

Now, here IS some very relevant information to the upcoming special election in Alabama:

http://www.rocketcitynow.com/news/write-in-process-for-alabama-us-senate-special-election/868839599

The Alabama SOS has made it clear that in this case, if the sum of write-in votes is larger than the margin between the top two candidates, then those write-in votes will be tallied and will go into the official record.

Richard Winger has some more information has to how Alabama has historically treated write-in votes:

http://ballot-access.org/2017/11/30...between-the-first-and-second-place-finishers/

 

Nah, leftist spin is what you are doing here, trying and failing to masquerade it as "objective" statistics, you've clearly taken the "there are lies, damn lies and statistics" saying to heart.

Rest assured that you're not fooling anyone with this phony deliberately slanted "statistics", the fact that you "forgot" to mention 3 latest polls putting Moore solidly outside the margin of error ahead are quite telling, so are your amateurish and transparent attempts to portray Moore's lower than normal margins due to his well-publicized alleged personal issues as the decline of the Republican brand in the state. Nice try, no cigar.

 

Moore will win in Alabama. He'll win because he can get out the Christian fundamentalist vote and they don't care that he's a pedophile. You see kid-fiddling is ok with Christian fundamentalists. It's what they do.

The problem for Republicans is that the vast majority of Americans view pedophilia as completely abhorrent. They'll make sure the GOP wears this.

 

So, the end-polling aggregate ,according to RCP, shows Moore (R) +2.2 in what should be an R+28-30 blowout race:



Now, I could delve into all sorts of internals and try to find some tea-leaves to read, but I think in this case, that's pretty ridiculous for the simple reason that Alabama is a scarcely polled state. Since Sessions ran unopposed in 2016, there were absolutely no senatorial polls from that state in that year. In the 2016 presidential election, Alabama was indeed polled 24 times, but most all of them were either part of the Reuters or the UPI/CVoter continuous 50-state polling.

Precisely because Alabama has been assumed to be a GOP blowout state, most national pollsters have not taken the time to research the state for the most effective models as they have done for traditional or more recent battleground states like Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania or Virginia. AL was polled maybe one time in 2012 and about 17 times in 2008. Here I am referring to the presidential level.

One thing is for sure: with a whopping 19 point disparity between the FOX News poll showing Democrat Jones by +10 and the Emerson poll showing Republican Moore by +9, one of those two polling organizations is going to have egg on it's face come Wednesday (or maybe Thursday). Of the 8 polls in the end-aggregate, Moore is at or over 50 in three polls and Jones is at 50 in two polls. It's really not anyone's fault - yet, because again, hardly a pollster has really researched the state, county by county, in order to come up with solid predictive models and NONE of those pollsters, save WAPO, polled Alabama in 2016. That's a fact I can prove. However, in the case of WAPO, it was in conjunction with Survey Monkey (September, 2016) and not the same methodology as used here.

So, officially, on paper, it's a crapshoot, with Moore having a slight lead, since a +2.2 aggregate is well within the standard MoE. That being said, Trafalgar Group (R) put out very solid end polling in 2016 and Gravis, as I noted in elsewhere, has also improved it's methodology and shows a pretty major swing toward Moore. The Trafalgar Group (R) was the only pollster to get PA, WI and MI right in 2016, so I would not poo-poo their results, they could very well end up being very accurate. Please note that those are both Republican pollling organizations that I am praising. So, with me, it is far less partisan than people may want to think about me.

And I know it sounds strange, but Quinnipiac really should be praised for NOT having polled AL. It shows what a serious organisation they are, for most all of the South is an area where they have done little or no research and so, without the one-the-ground experience (as they have in NY, NJ, PA, OH, VA, NC, CO, FL, WI, OH and NH), they didn't even try to make inexperienced models.

So, in the 3 weeks since I created this thread, the same statement applies as back then: this could end up being a modest win for either Moore or Jones, or more than likely, a relatively lean win for one or the other. Considering the very hard right lean of this state, it's voter-ID laws and the amazing coincidence that literally every single BMV is closed in heavily black counties (is being reported all over the place) and of course, the principle I like to call the "snap-back" factor, I do think that Moore is in the lead. What we cannot possibly know, because it was not polled, will be the write-in vote effect, if any.

So, a race that was suppposed to be a total sleeper race has now become hotly contested marquee race. And since both Pres. Trump and former Pres. Obama recorded last-minute robocalls for their respective sides, this has, for better or for worse, become a proxy-war between those 2 men. After the race has been called, regardless for whom, it will be spun six ways to Wichita and the vitriol about it is not likely do die down for a good while yet.

I am not willing to make a call in this race: it's just too wild and wooly and in an off-year, who knows what the VT will be until everything is tallied. But my gut tells me that Jones is the underdog and that Moore has the better cards in his hand, as we would have expected, anway.

I will be watching and posting the returns as they come in this evening.

-Stat

 

Here's what I found interesting in the FOX poll: 44% of respondents were republican, 42% were democrats (including leans). The partisan gap in Alabama is 2%? I call bs on that. Gallup's data from last year has it at 51.8(GOP) - 34.8 (DEM). So far as I saw from the FOX poll, it was not weighted. But then you look at the Emerson poll, which was weighted (precisely how, I'm 100% sure) and he has a huge lead. The Gravis poll earlier in the month was also weighted, and it showed Moore with a small lead.

And the betting odds are still solidly in Moore's favor - he is likely to win.

 

I took a closer look at the FOX poll first, because it was such an outlier. I was surprised to see no indication that the results were weighted, and the sample had 42% lean Dem and 44% lean Rep. That seemed to be a pretty bad Alabama sample to me.

https://andersonrobbins.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/121117_complete_dec_AL_topline_web.pdf

I agree. I'd been hearing things that made it sound like a dead heat alot, but looking closer it seems to clearly lean one way.

 

If it is based on self-identification, which is a constantly changing element, I would not be so sure about that.
But of course, it is possible.
The problem with all of this in terms of Alabama, of course, is that the state neither collects nor does it disseminate data about VR by party affiliation, so the Gallup polling data is not guaranteed to be correct, either.

One could also make a similar argument that the Emerson poll also is an outlier, since Emerson only dials landlines and therefore completely misses an entire swath of the population.

 

I read an analysis by 538 on the polling MoE for races of this nature. In essence it can be anywhere from 10% to 13% given the variations involved so the RCP polling average is just telling us that no one knows for sure who is going to win.

Like you I am making no predictions. The snap-back effect could put Moore over the top just as the write-ins could sink him. With Jones the black voter turnout is crucial and the GOP voter suppression could be effective enough to stymie his chances.

This one is a complete toss-up in what should be a GOP gimme race so that alone is a win for Dems.

Even if Moore does win it is still a loss for the GOP because that will mean explaining to the 2018 electorate why they have sexual molesters like Moore and the BLOTUS in their ranks.

Please pass the popcorn.

Edit: I forgot to add the observation that someone else has made. The GOP has managed to find and promote an even worse candidate than the BLOTUS. Hard to believe but true. What other scumsuckers do they still have on the bench?

 

That was the Democrat plan all along when they decided they would do what to could to make sure it was not a fair election as that is the only way they can win.

 

Your last question is hopefully one for which we will not be given an answer.....

 

That statement of yours makes absolutely no sense at all. Good luck to you.

 

Oh wow one autocorrect mistake, here is this better?
That was the Democrat plan all along when they decided they would do what they could to make sure it was not a fair election as that is the only way they can win.

 

The problem for you and many others on the left is that those who falsely claim pedophilia make themselves as abhorrent as pedophilia itself.

 

As of this point in time it appears as though Jones has prevailed in spite of GOP voter suppression in black districts. Had that not been happening the odds are that Jones would have had a larger margin over Moore.

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/page/2017_alabama_us_senate_election_results.html

With the assumption that had the Write-ins all voted for Moore he would have beaten Jones but had there been no GOP voter suppression then Jones would have won IMO.

On the national scale this is a massive WIN for the Dems. They have beaten the Republicans in a safe seat that should have been a +30% walkover for the GOP.

This will surely energize the Dems for 2018 to go after every potential seat because it demonstrates that it is possible no matter what the odds. Granted not every GOP candidate is going to be as unpalatable as Moore which makes it a whole lot harder but that won't stop them trying.

The GOP should take this as yet another warning but I am willing to bet that they will just ignore the result and pretend that it was an aberration rather than a trend.

 

The GOP voter suppression makes it an unfair election but you are not whining about that happening.

 

well yeah, the FOX poll was off by about eight or nine points XD. I stand by the claim that the FOX poll was ****.

But it turns out that the Emerson poll was likely using outdated party-affiliation data, b/c as you say that could have changed here.

In the end it was a really close race. If not for the write in vote, Moore would have won (he lost by 1.5%, 1.7% went to write ins, and I think it's reasonable to assume few Democratic voters made write-ins).

 

It is equally reasonable to assume that there would have been write-ins regardless so there is no guarantee that enough of the write-ins would have gone to Moore to ensure that he won.

 

lol, the only time in recent history that there were that many votes there was when Sessions ran unopposed and won 97.3% of the vote. Apart from that, the most in recent history was 0.1% write ins. And with the many people, including Alabama public officials publicly stating they won't vote for Roy Moore and will write in a candidate, I'm sure it's totally "reasonable" to assume that plenty of otherwise Democratic voters made write-ins. -_-

 

moore should have won, they pulled a trick out of a hat to flip a deep red state like alabama and turn it blue temporarily.

he wasn't a peddle file in the true sense of the word, the relationships with minors were godly and in a different time when such things were okay.

 

To be mathematically correct, assuming that Jones' +1.5% margin holds, then the FOX poll was off to the LEFT by 8.5 points, which is inacceptable.
But the Emerson, which showed Moore +9, was off to the RIGHT by at least 10.5 points, every bit as inacceptable.
At least the FOX poll picked the correct winner. Emerson did not.
There is no statewide party-affiliation data in Alabama as the state does not collect neither does it publish VR data by party. The Emerson poll was so way off because Emerson calls landlines only.

I already mentioned these things at the results thread as well.

There have always been write-ins in AL, only, they have a special regulation as to whether said votes go into the end statistic, or not.

And BTW, the polling aggregate indeed pointed to a close race in a state that should have been a GOP romp.

No 2 ways about it, this is a huge embarrassment for Trump and his fractured GOP.

 

OMG, no no no no no

 

this is not correct.