The 80 year myth circulated by Senate Majority Leader McConnell, Senate Judiciary Chairman Grassley and every Presidential GOP candidate is easily dispensed with:
Contrary to the GOP Senate Majority Leader's claims that the Senate has not confirmed a Supreme Court Justice during an election year in over 80 years, that same person confirmed the currently serving Justice Kennedy in an election year (1988) and Justice Murphy was confirmed in 1940.
In the Supreme Court's history, 21 people have been nominated in an election year.
However, their obstruction based on fallacy is worse than that.
In only 4 years was someone appointed but not confirmed to the Supreme Court in an election year.
1968
1852
1844
1828
Those were all special cases.
In every case, the Senate was controlled by the same party as the President.
So an opposition party Senate has NEVER blocked a Supreme Court nominee in an election year. Not once in the 228 year history of the world's longest democratic constitution.
In all the 4 years above, the President was unpopular within his own party.
In 1968, the former Senate Majority Leader, President Johnson was at war with a large faction of his party. He was so unpopular as president that he decided he couldn't win his own party's nomination and withdrew. Sitting Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas was nominated to take over for retiring Chief Justice Warren. Fortas had angered this faction of the president's party both because of his close association with he president and his own dubious acts. More details are here.
In 1852, the President was so unpopular he was not nominated for reelection by his own party. Like the case in 1844 the President had only become President by being VP when the President died and failed to win an election in his own right.
By 1844, the President had been thrown out of his own party and rejected all 7 of his nominations while the President continued the spat by renominating already rejected nominees multiple times. More details on this are here.
In 1824, President John Quincy Adams was chosen as part of the Corrupt Bargain by the House of Representatives despite the President losing to Andrew Jackson by 11% in the popular vote (no candidate had reached 50%). Both were members of the same party. The corrupt bargain poisoned his administration. A couple weeks after Andrew Jackson beat him in the 1828 election, John Quincy Adams nominated a Supreme Court justice, who was not confirmed and 22 days later Andrew Jackson nominated his own candidate. More details are here
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Data on Why Bernie Sanders Will Win in Heavily Non-White States
If you believed many pundits and people from the Hillary Clinton campaign, she has 80% support among blacks (another poll with similar info) and therefore Bernie Sanders is doomed.
But these are old polls (August and November 2015).
And they are no surprise.
The first 11 months of 2015 the coverage on CBS/NBC/ABC national news:
For years Hillary Clinton has had near 100% name recognition. 4 months after Sanders announced his campaign, 38% still knew too little about him to even give him a favorability rating.
Here is why there will be none in Nevada. There are similar reasons why you may get few to no polls for South Carolina.
(Feb 12 EDIT: One Nevada poll (from the GOP) just published. It shows Bernie TIED with Hillary)
There is other useful.
Look at the recent election exit polls of New Hampshire (and to a lesser extent Iowa).
In the New Hampshire Primary which Bernie Sanders won 60% to 38%, CBS exit polls showed
In New Hampshire 7% was non-white. Nevada has 35% non-whites and South Carolina registered Democrats are 44% non-white. If Nevada and South Carolina voters felt the same (based on their race) towards Hillary/Bernie,
then Bernie Sanders will get a
15 point win in Nevada and a 10 point win in South Carolina
Based on the data from this article about Nevada's Hispanic voter turnout, using that data which suggests a 27% non-white vote this would mean an even larger 18 point win for Bernie.
What about Iowa? NBC exit polls showed
If Nevada and South Carolina voters voted like Iowans (assuming anyone really votes solely based on their race), Hillary Clinton gets a
12 point win in Nevada and a 14 point win in South Carolina
(The above Nevada Hispanic turnout alternative reduces it to a 10 point win in Nevada)
Even this situation when Bernie was still being ignored by the media and the GOP competition, whit is not the 60 point blowout implied by the 80% black support claims.
So which result is more likely, voters acting like they did on Feb 1st or Feb 9th?
Campaigns get momentum, particularly in Bernie Sanders case where the media has ignored him (see above). The media is no longer ignoring Bernie Sanders. Particularly when he tied the all-time 24-hour fundraising record of 6 million dollars by taking 10 seconds to ask the people watching his NH victory speech to donate.
Caveats: Individual voters in South Carolina and Nevada won't have identical concerns as New Hampshire or Iowa. Both campaigns will do different things in these upcoming states than they did in New Hampshire. Particularly if Bernie Sanders wins in Nevada. The exit polls are samples, not the entire population of people who voted in this primary.
But the exit polls from voters is better than no information.
Less useful data: national polls. Pollees are asked about candidates even though they won't vote for months. They have much less time and reason to become informed now. Too many things will happen to change their minds.
Based on demographics and recent exit poll data,
I expect Bernie to have at least a 10 point win in Nevada.
This will only reinforce the likelihood of a victory in South Carolina.
For good non-data focused arguments supporting the overall claims in this post, read here and here.
But these are old polls (August and November 2015).
And they are no surprise.
The first 11 months of 2015 the coverage on CBS/NBC/ABC national news:
| Candidate | Minutes |
|---|---|
| Clinton | 113 |
| Sanders | 10 |
For years Hillary Clinton has had near 100% name recognition. 4 months after Sanders announced his campaign, 38% still knew too little about him to even give him a favorability rating.
We need CURRENT polls from Nevada and South Carolina.
Here is why there will be none in Nevada. There are similar reasons why you may get few to no polls for South Carolina.
(Feb 12 EDIT: One Nevada poll (from the GOP) just published. It shows Bernie TIED with Hillary)
There is other useful.
Look at the recent election exit polls of New Hampshire (and to a lesser extent Iowa).
In the New Hampshire Primary which Bernie Sanders won 60% to 38%, CBS exit polls showed
| Bernie | Hillary | |
|---|---|---|
| White (93%) | 61% | 37% |
| Non-White (7%) | 49% | 50% |
In New Hampshire 7% was non-white. Nevada has 35% non-whites and South Carolina registered Democrats are 44% non-white. If Nevada and South Carolina voters felt the same (based on their race) towards Hillary/Bernie,
then Bernie Sanders will get a
15 point win in Nevada and a 10 point win in South Carolina
Based on the data from this article about Nevada's Hispanic voter turnout, using that data which suggests a 27% non-white vote this would mean an even larger 18 point win for Bernie.
What about Iowa? NBC exit polls showed
| Bernie | Hillary | |
|---|---|---|
| White (91%) | 46% | 49% |
| Non-White (9%) | 34% | 58% |
If Nevada and South Carolina voters voted like Iowans (assuming anyone really votes solely based on their race), Hillary Clinton gets a
12 point win in Nevada and a 14 point win in South Carolina
(The above Nevada Hispanic turnout alternative reduces it to a 10 point win in Nevada)
Even this situation when Bernie was still being ignored by the media and the GOP competition, whit is not the 60 point blowout implied by the 80% black support claims.
So which result is more likely, voters acting like they did on Feb 1st or Feb 9th?
Campaigns get momentum, particularly in Bernie Sanders case where the media has ignored him (see above). The media is no longer ignoring Bernie Sanders. Particularly when he tied the all-time 24-hour fundraising record of 6 million dollars by taking 10 seconds to ask the people watching his NH victory speech to donate.
Caveats: Individual voters in South Carolina and Nevada won't have identical concerns as New Hampshire or Iowa. Both campaigns will do different things in these upcoming states than they did in New Hampshire. Particularly if Bernie Sanders wins in Nevada. The exit polls are samples, not the entire population of people who voted in this primary.
But the exit polls from voters is better than no information.
Less useful data: national polls. Pollees are asked about candidates even though they won't vote for months. They have much less time and reason to become informed now. Too many things will happen to change their minds.
Based on demographics and recent exit poll data,
I expect Bernie to have at least a 10 point win in Nevada.
This will only reinforce the likelihood of a victory in South Carolina.
For good non-data focused arguments supporting the overall claims in this post, read here and here.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Des Moines Register Likely Voters Not Likely
The end does not justify the means. Des Moines Register predicts a couple dozen elections fairly well, so no one questions the details anymore. They just consider it the Gold Standard and accept whatever it says as a matter of faith.
But math isn't based on faith.
As Jeff Roe points out, despite his clearly partisan motivations, the Des Moines Register called 3019 registered voters and determined that 602 were likely to caucus which is a 19.9% turnout. Traditionally turnout is 6% turnout. A 19.9% turnout would yield 386,000 GOP caucus voters when the highest all time was 131,000. In other words, not very likely.
Why would the Des Moines Register allow 602 people to represent Iowa?
Math.
In one case the math would render the Des Moines Register poll as unimportant, in another case it might bankrupt their polling budget, assuming they had the manpower to accomplish the task.
To get a 6% turnout of the 3019 registered voters they contacted, that would mean only 181 would provide the answers for their poll. A standard margin of error for such a small sample is 7.2%.
Can you imagine the media reporting on a poll with a 7% margin of error?
That would mean that Trump's numbers are 95% . to be somewhere between 21 and 35. Cruz would be somewhere between 16 and 30. Rubio would be somewhere between 8 and 22. In that scenario, an analyst could plausibly suggest that Rubio could win the Iowa Caucus.
The alternative math solution is to greatly increase the number of registered voters reached. For a 6% turnout that means reaching 10,033 registered voters. That would cost the Des Moines Register at least 3 times more money, with at least 3 times as many staff to contact them. Do they have that much staff? And with all the poll fatigue, it might take a lot more calling to reach a given registered voter. So is 4 times the cost and 4 times the callers an unreasonable requirement?
The Des Moines Register claims they aren't trying to predict turnout, but that is a screen to keep the discussion away from a huge margin of error or a huge cost of doing correct polling.
The fundamentals of statistical sampling assume your sample represents the general population. Who believes that people that are judged by the Des Moines Register are THREE TIMES MORE LIKELY to vote than the general population have views that represent the general population?
On the Democratic side the numbers also show questionable math.
They again accepted 602 (more on that suspicious number later) registered voters as likely to vote in the democratic caucus which again produces the 386,000 number of actual democratic caucus voters even though 2008's record SMASHING attendance had only 239,000 democratic caucus voters. A number 1/3 that size (130,000) seems more reasonable which would match (after inflating for population growth) the 2004 Democratic Caucus attendance when we had the revolutionary Dean, the eventual nominee Kerry, Speaker of the House Gephardt from next door Missouri and many others to bring out voters.
But cutting that much means just 203 likely voters with a 6.9% margin of error. This means analysts trying to guess whether Clinton's 45 really is a number between 38 and 52 and Sander's 42 really is a number somewhere between 35 and 49.
In other words, the analysts and media pundits would dismiss the Des Moines Register poll as just another poll result in a field of dozens of polls.
Or the Des Moines Register could triple or quadruple its staff to try to reach 10,000+ registered voters who would actually answer their phone call.
The most likely result is the Des Moines Register would not have the resources to contact that many registered voters so they would either be forced to report a too large margin of error, or hope that their credentials keep anyone from looking under the hood at their suspect math.
The last minor point is their choice of EXACTLY 602 people to vote in the GOP caucus and the same exact number in the democratic caucus. There is 0% reason to believe the size of the two parties caucuses will be the same. They Democrats have much larger caucuses whenever both parties have no incumbents. This forced choice of tallying the voices of more GOP likely voters than is going to happen is for appearances. They don't want to confuse data illiterate media analysts and pundits with HONEST MESSY data (which is normal in the real world). If they present two different margins of error, their might be questions. People might look closer at the data and their methods.
Finally, there are much worse polling methods used. The CNN one at Christmas time 2011 with 0% independents in its sample launched the viability of Rick Santorum. That was far worse than this Des Moines Register poll.
This post is mainly to point out that math counts. Changing the math to make things look good to the media does not.
But math isn't based on faith.
As Jeff Roe points out, despite his clearly partisan motivations, the Des Moines Register called 3019 registered voters and determined that 602 were likely to caucus which is a 19.9% turnout. Traditionally turnout is 6% turnout. A 19.9% turnout would yield 386,000 GOP caucus voters when the highest all time was 131,000. In other words, not very likely.
Why would the Des Moines Register allow 602 people to represent Iowa?
Math.
In one case the math would render the Des Moines Register poll as unimportant, in another case it might bankrupt their polling budget, assuming they had the manpower to accomplish the task.
To get a 6% turnout of the 3019 registered voters they contacted, that would mean only 181 would provide the answers for their poll. A standard margin of error for such a small sample is 7.2%.
Can you imagine the media reporting on a poll with a 7% margin of error?
That would mean that Trump's numbers are 95% . to be somewhere between 21 and 35. Cruz would be somewhere between 16 and 30. Rubio would be somewhere between 8 and 22. In that scenario, an analyst could plausibly suggest that Rubio could win the Iowa Caucus.
The alternative math solution is to greatly increase the number of registered voters reached. For a 6% turnout that means reaching 10,033 registered voters. That would cost the Des Moines Register at least 3 times more money, with at least 3 times as many staff to contact them. Do they have that much staff? And with all the poll fatigue, it might take a lot more calling to reach a given registered voter. So is 4 times the cost and 4 times the callers an unreasonable requirement?
The Des Moines Register claims they aren't trying to predict turnout, but that is a screen to keep the discussion away from a huge margin of error or a huge cost of doing correct polling.
The fundamentals of statistical sampling assume your sample represents the general population. Who believes that people that are judged by the Des Moines Register are THREE TIMES MORE LIKELY to vote than the general population have views that represent the general population?
On the Democratic side the numbers also show questionable math.
They again accepted 602 (more on that suspicious number later) registered voters as likely to vote in the democratic caucus which again produces the 386,000 number of actual democratic caucus voters even though 2008's record SMASHING attendance had only 239,000 democratic caucus voters. A number 1/3 that size (130,000) seems more reasonable which would match (after inflating for population growth) the 2004 Democratic Caucus attendance when we had the revolutionary Dean, the eventual nominee Kerry, Speaker of the House Gephardt from next door Missouri and many others to bring out voters.
But cutting that much means just 203 likely voters with a 6.9% margin of error. This means analysts trying to guess whether Clinton's 45 really is a number between 38 and 52 and Sander's 42 really is a number somewhere between 35 and 49.
In other words, the analysts and media pundits would dismiss the Des Moines Register poll as just another poll result in a field of dozens of polls.
Or the Des Moines Register could triple or quadruple its staff to try to reach 10,000+ registered voters who would actually answer their phone call.
The most likely result is the Des Moines Register would not have the resources to contact that many registered voters so they would either be forced to report a too large margin of error, or hope that their credentials keep anyone from looking under the hood at their suspect math.
The last minor point is their choice of EXACTLY 602 people to vote in the GOP caucus and the same exact number in the democratic caucus. There is 0% reason to believe the size of the two parties caucuses will be the same. They Democrats have much larger caucuses whenever both parties have no incumbents. This forced choice of tallying the voices of more GOP likely voters than is going to happen is for appearances. They don't want to confuse data illiterate media analysts and pundits with HONEST MESSY data (which is normal in the real world). If they present two different margins of error, their might be questions. People might look closer at the data and their methods.
Finally, there are much worse polling methods used. The CNN one at Christmas time 2011 with 0% independents in its sample launched the viability of Rick Santorum. That was far worse than this Des Moines Register poll.
This post is mainly to point out that math counts. Changing the math to make things look good to the media does not.
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