Trump also won a majority (55 percent) of Latino men

Because Reddit is not a place of enlightenment, I've seen lots of people there asking how to report the undocumented family members of those who voted for Trump and urging others to do so. Apparently, ICE has a hotline.

I am working really hard right now not to hate Latino men. There's no real reason that I should hate them more than white men or white women except that the swing was so big, and a part of me worries about Latin American style coups becoming acceptable. I recognize that this is racist of me, so I'm trying to fight it, but the anger is there. Ellie Mystal touches on this; black people voted the way they needed to, and there's a rupture.

People were mad and wanted to kick out the incumbent and projected their wishes on to Trump. There was a reporter for the Economist who published the following vignettes that should have made him realize that the reality of Trump was not getting through:

"The Polish-American historian who told me Donald Trump will obviously never abandon Nato.

The naturalised Indian-American car hire rental guy who told me Trump will make immigration easier.

The Mexican-American activist who told me Democrats only look out for black people and rich whites."

I heard someone on a call-in radio show say that as a GenX er she got screwed by school closures. More people didn't die in Florida and she was stuck taking care of kids and parents. (I always felt close the bars with income support to open the schools was the way to go) but how is that relevant for the next 4 years of Federal policy. Most of the school closures were under Trump's administration.

A small spark, if not light, in these dark days is the vitiation of the thinking and the affect (forced laughter, edge-of-hysteria babbling, awkward pop culture references too young for the speaker) of Slate, Crooked Media and too many podcasts with too many commercials for too many direct-to-consumer brands. Thanks for nothing, assholes. Enjoy selling your screenplays.

3: Dahlia Lithwick of Slate has been great on the Courts and sounding the alarm any chance she gets.

"The Polish-American historian who told me Donald Trump will obviously never abandon Nato."

Who the fuck is this guy? Because if Polish history teaches you anything -- I mean any damn thing at all -- it's that your allies are going to leave you in the lurch but you go down fighting anyway. Sometimes you save Europe by arriving at Vienna in the nick of time, but most of the time it's a glorious struggle that nobody else joins. I mean, who else has a national anthem that begins "X-Country is not yet lost?" Jezus, Maryja i Józef

Daniel Knowles was the reporter, and I saw his comment on BlueSky. No idea who the historian was.

4: I like and respect her but the social media inflections that have soaked into her podcast drive me away.

I have yet to listen to a podcast in my life.

Don't.

I don't even know how to play one.

You just put your lips together and blow.

Maybe on iPhone, but Android is different.

6: Sorry if it wasn't clear that I was agog at the historian.

1 is me too.

Also in the RioGrandeValley subreddit, people arguing about why the valley swung red. It's not quite the same as the racism conversation we had here yesterday, but it's cousin to it. The main point I saw was on how people in the RGV don't seem themselves as immigrants, full stop. (With good reason!) So when Trump harps on immigrants, they don't hear "brown people, including you", they hear "actual recent immigrants, unlike you".

This article doesn't offer an explanation, but is a good reminder that, surprisingly, the shift towards Trump, relative to 2020, happened everywhere: https://www.slowboring.com/p/breaking-down-the-election-results

Preliminary 2024 Presidential election results at the county level show a widespread swing toward former President Donald Trump between 2020 and 2024. Trump did better in 2024 than in 2020 in counties that cover 92% of the US population.

In 2024, as in most recent presidential elections, few counties had dramatic swings relative to 2020 that diverged from the national swing. That means the 2024 county vote pattern was little changed from 2020. The correlation between Trump's shares of the vote in 2024 and in 2020 across counties was .99 -- that is, the bluest places in 2024 were overwhelmingly the bluest places in 2020, and the reddest places four years ago were, by and large, the reddest places this time around.

I know that it's too early to make comments about turnout with any confidence, but this still confuses me: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/11/eight-million-missing-democratic-voters

If you hold the percentage of eligible voters who actually voted constant between 2020 and 2024, you would have expected about 2.7 million more votes this year, i.e., about 161.5 million. Instead we're going to end up with just about ten million fewer votes than that. The overwhelming majority of that figure will consist of votes that the Democratic presidential candidate got in 2020 and didn't get in 2024: Harris is going to end up with about eight million fewer votes than Biden got.

15 I think that's copium and belied by 16.
And we all saw this happen in real time as the momentum sapped from her campaign: https://x.com/yappelbaum/status/1854513400203690244?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ

There's a reason those voters didn't show up this time and it's not explained by what happened in other countries

There can't be 8 million pissed about Gaza in a non-swing state voters, can there?

19 no, but I'm largely referring to the abandoning of populist messaging, instead we got crypto being important to the prosperity of African-American men and crap like that

"We lost because Harris got too friendly with big business!" - my brother in Christ, her opponent was a billionaire property developer who had the world's richest man as his warm-up act

Trump was way more all in on crypto than Harris.

Having been sitting in an actual swing state, I cab assure you there was lots of populist messaging on the ground and no one mentioned crypto.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/your-reactions-4-2

I don't know enough about economics to evaluate this guy's argument, but it's worth putting in the conversation, at least.

"The root cause of the Democratic collapse really is the disparity created by unconventional monetary policy -- and especially quantitative easing, the reduction of interest rates via the Federal Reserve's purchase of government debt, reducing the cost of capital at the middle and long end of the yield curve."

This was surprising to me too https://x.com/reider/status/1854493016834056574?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ

I think part of the issue with fuel prices is that a huge number of men have recently bought a stupid pickup that gets like 15 mpg. $4 gas compared to $2 gas isn't noticeable for me, because we do most of our driving in a 30+ mpg car.

I'm sorry but any argument about shifts in messaging in the last couple months changing the outcome are pundit fallacy bullshit. The marginal or non voters are barely aware of how our government works. There are people who support abortion and voted against Dems because Biden was president during Dobbs so clearly Trump is the one in favor of abortion rights. I saw an excerpt of an article interviewing infrequent voters who thought Trump was better for Poland because he'll protect NATO, that he'll make legal immigration easier because he want the wall to block illegal immigration. They don't know who the fuck Mark Cuban is or who he supports or that the FTC is even a government agency. There are millions of people who still think Trump is a self-made businessman because they saw it on TV 20 years ago. The NYFuckingT had headlines two stories apart that this was a repudiation of elites and that Elon and tech billionaires got their money's worth. Everyone just wants to tell stories about their favorite issue.

21 if there's another explanation I'd love to hear it

25: I thought it was common knowledge that core inflation and headline inflation were different, because core inflation excluded energy and food?

The Fed's inflation target is "personal consumption expenditures inflation below 2% per year". PCE does include food and energy. (Core PCE inflation doesn't, but the Fed doesn't target core PCE.)

If Reider only learned this very basic piece of information today, he has no place commenting on any aspect of economic policy. This is like a defence correspondent going "hey guys I just learned today that the US has an Army but it has a Marine Corps as well which is like a totally separate little army! Wild, huh?"

But the point is that headline PCE includes lots of other things as well - so you can have, and indeed we did have, a situation where food and energy go up 10% but the official inflation figure is far lower, because nothing else is going up at all.

Tooze, unlike Reider, is not ignorant, and so he is not saying that the Fed is currently targetting core. Nor is Tooze saying that the Fed should switch from targetting core to targetting headline. He is saying that it makes sense for the Fed to target core when it's working out its policy, but also to track and comment on "anti-core" - food and energy alone - because this is the bit people notice the most, so that will be what people see as "felt inflation".

We lost because a group of very wealthy people spent hundreds of millions on propaganda.

24 is interesting and the argument holds together.

"The election results are a natural reaction to the amount of disparity that has been created in our society by the above policy measures. Rich people own lots of equities and real estate, and have never been wealthier with the stock market and home prices at these levels. Those people are disproportionately 65+, college educated and white. Contrary to expectations, Harris improved her margins with these people. They are generally doing well.
Meanwhile, everyone else has suffered immensely in this economic environment."

The trouble is that it's based on an erroneous assertion: that wealth inequality has actually increased as a result of the two big rounds of QE, one during the financial crisis, the other during COVID. But wealth inequality didn't move much after the financial crisis and actually decreased a nearly record amount during COVID - mainly because of COVID stimulus payments. Chart 1 here https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/

26: yes, and also fuel is an area where you buy the same thing again and again, often in similar quantities, at short intervals, and the unit price is on a huge sign above the place you buy it. Couldn't be easier to do price comparisons. If you bought ten laptops a week, you'd be extremely aware of inflation or deflation in the computer market.

if there's another explanation I'd love to hear it

I thought it was because Harris refused to call for an arms embargo on Israel?

I still don't understand how the stock market keeps going up.

34: Helium.

Yeah - I have no idea, but I do think having a way for the Party (not a candidate or specific campaign) to engage with voters on a regular basis would be good. There were some doors which had several pieces of literature left, so I didn't leave more. And I heard someone say, "I can't believe that they are ringing my doorbell now." Like, you just need to find a way for the low information voter to think that people like them vote for Democrats. I don't know how, but mailings and junk texts are not the way.

Tammany Hall was corrupt, but there's something to be said for the Machine.

> So when Trump harps on immigrants, they don't hear "brown people, including you", they hear "actual recent immigrants, unlike you".

I feel like there's a more specific context to this that progressives almost uniformly fail to grapple with. It's the huge increase of immigrants trying to claim asylum as our economy improved relative to everywhere else from 2021 until Biden updated the rules this year:

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters

Almost no community where these immigrants landed en masse coped with it well, and generally those were Latino communities that were already struggling with cost of living and public services straining from tax base loss and the decline in public employment post-COVID.

I don't think the attitude is, "we're not like those people, and we need to protect what's ours from them." It's, "we've been here 20 years and are fighting for pieces of the same diminishing pie."

I know it's annoyingly centrist of me, but I appreciated Mike Pesca's critique of redistributionist rhetoric and analysis in media today. He argued that most people care about
1) what will this policy do for me?
2) what will this policy do for other people I know?
3) what will it do for people I don't know/or who aren't like me?
4) how will this policy hurt people?

In that ranked order.

He argues that too much thinking and coverage focuses on whether policies do enough for the priority disadvantaged groups. His take fits my gut that most people, well most Americans, want government to make their lives better but they don't care that much if it helps other people even more.

20 to 33
Also, Michigan yes, a bit but not elsewhere.
Taking this more seriously than you'd meant that

if there's another explanation I'd love to hear it

The simplest explanations* are (1) people really hate inflation, (2) possibly because of inflation incumbent parties are losing across the world, or (3) there's been an increase in perceived public disorder (petty crime, rudeness, bad driving) which maybe reflects lingering frustration/mental exhaustion from COVID and that hurts either incumbents (again) or Democrats specifically because they're seen as putting a lower priority on disorder.

Those are all dumb reasons to vote for Trump, but they are a significant part of people's daily experience.

* not necessarily correct, just simple.

5: lurid reminds me that Ukraine's anthem ("Ukraine has not yet perished") is right there as well.

I hope Ukraine only loses territory and doesn't have to become a puppet state.

37: we have a ton of migrant families in MA, because we have historically housed homeless families. Unfortunately, their work permits haven't been processed. Honestly, we could use the labor.

Lawrence, MA is a poor Latino city with no decent public transportation and nobody who commutes into the city. 80% Hispanic. Someone I know from: there called it Little Dominican Republic. In 2016 Clinton got 82%, 74% for Biden in 2020 and Harris only got 57%.

38: I mean, that's why I've always supported more generous universal programs. I thought the 6k credit for people with babies in the first year of life addressed that. It's why I thought health insurance not tied to employment that doesn't require you to fill out complicated forms was a good idea so that people could take whatever job they wanted. But I am not representative. A juiced up ACA that let you pick a plan without having to pay a premium (not great for disorganized people) financed by general revenue and payroll taxes seemed like a centrist option though I would prefer Medicare for All.

But apparently anything that would get rid of employer health insurance is too left wing. (Car like called Harris's 2020 Medicare for All plan left wing, but it was really just Medicare Advantage for All, that is private insurance).

Car like was an autocorrect from "Carville".

29: that's a horrific thread, shallow tourist commentary on the US, weirdly tendentious stuff on the Middle East (where I thought he knew what he was talking about but he seems to have swallowed the "anti-war Trump" Ron Paul thing?), mad economics (Rachel Reeves must abandon fiscal targets to get inflation down? now it's already down back under the target? since when is a bigger deficit deflationary?)

Also, Eurostat does have an inverse core inflation series - ie a milk, cornflakes, and gas index - if anyone wants to see what one is like. It's usually about 0.5 percentage points hotter than the ordinary HCPI, although it went even wilder in 2023. Very unusually it's recently gone negative. Here's a chart of the difference between the two: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1zjSw

I just want to note that everyone is assuming Asians voted for Trump, and except for Vietnamese Americans ( who break Republican for historical reasons) all polling indicates we still did not, across henders, and it's really grating on me that just as I am worried again about my Dad getting assaulted again people are implying we deserve it because of fucking Usha Vance.

I just want to note that everyone is assuming Asians voted for Trump, and except for Vietnamese Americans ( who break Republican for historical reasons) all polling indicates we still did not, across henders, and it's really grating on me that just as I am worried again about my Dad getting assaulted again people are implying we deserve it because of fucking Usha Vance.

I was never blaming Asians for that. I am well aware that the main demographic that voted for Trump is my own. I am blaming Asians for the bricks near my garage, but that problem was directly caused by a guy from China.

46/47: I thought everyone was talking about Hispanics.

They aren't the same?

My favorite Democcrat/Republisan statistic:

From 1980 to 2024, Republicans held the White House for 24 years, Democrats for 20 years. Recessions started in Republican years: 5. Recesions started in Democratic years: 0.

From 1952 to 2024, Republicans had control for 40 years, Democrats for 32 years. Recesions starting under Republican Presidents: 10. Recessions starting under Democratic residents: 1 (Thanks Jimmy Carter.)

From 1900, Republicans for 64 years, Democrats for 60 years. Republican recessions: 17 (including Great Depression), Democrats: 6.

Most recent Democratic Presidents who kept us out of recessions for their entire terms: Biden, Obama, Clinton, Johnson, Kennnedy.

Most recent Republican Presidents who kept us out of recessions for their time in office: Ford, who took office during Nixon's seocnd recession, and served 2 1/2 years. Before that, Garfield, who was president for six months in 1881.

We know how to do this economy stuff, and they don't. I don't understand why the Democratic Party has never mentioned this sort of thing.

46/47: I'm sorry. Rest assured that there are idiots across the political spectrum. I know a total of two anecdotes about members of the Tibetan diaspora here voting Trump (one in 2016, one now), possibly because they think he's tough on China, but getting mad at particular demographics is pathetic in general.

51: It'd certainly be interesting to see a Democratic campaign that only ran on the economy (and policies to increase household wealth); just that one story, for several months. There are snags, though; one of them is that in practice it's hard to do growth and decarbonisation at the same time, so promises need to be judged pretty carefully.

Still, the UK experience is that the parties duel for ages and in some detail on the topic of 'who will put more money in your pocket, really' and I'm not sure I really picked that up from either campaign here. The Republican campaign promises seem incredibly vague: just 'end rampant inflation', or 'lower taxes' (which?), or 'no tax on tips'.

getting mad at particular demographics is pathetic in general.

If I'm reading Moby correctly, I agree with him that more old white men need to get beat up.

I'd like to see an explanation of this (and it's not just AOC)
https://x.com/nicktagliaferro/status/1854586429839433982?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ

Oh my god. Google searches for "Did Joe Biden drop out?" spiked this week.

24, 31: yeah that commenter in 24 sounds like "this one weird trick explains it all" except it's got holes all through it. The pandemic stimulus, which kept people without savings solvent for the pandemic and beyond, while their relative economic position improved, made people mad because the rich got richer? No mention of tax cuts as a driver of inequality? Doesn't pass the smell test.

Given that people seem to like politics with a scapegoat, I wish the administration had gone full bore with "those prices are price gouging and we're getting those fuckers". It is somewhat true and also a simplistic explanation and demonizes the right people.

I think part of the divergence is that there used to be much more common agreement on when the economy was strong, newspapers and TV messaged it out and it got into the culture. The GOP started getting away from that ages ago (I remember a Mad Magazine panel around the 1996 election mocking GOP messaging with a putative TV ad displaying a putative breadline and the caption "CLINTON RECESSION") but the link has finally been broken with the media joining in on taking an honest-to-goodness economic boom (with declining inequality, even!) and emphasizing the minor negative aspects of it.

In other words, in the decades when economic growth correlated closely with economic sentiment and with whether presidents got reelected, the causative mechanism wasn't directly through people's pocketbooks, but mostly through the coordination of vibe communication, which has now collapsed.

I'd like to see an explanation of this (and it's not just AOC)

I am mostly of the opinion that the Harris campaign was good. The strongest counter-argument would be that she did run behind down-ballot candidates in several places. I'm not surprised that AOC would have good support in her district; if I was trying to extract a lesson I would probably look at Ruben Gallego in AZ, and try to figure out what made his campaign more successful.

58: When you critique messaging, you have to take into account that the media is inevitably -- and even understandably -- going to be more interested in Trump fellating a microphone. The Democrats hit the price-gouging thing pretty hard, but it didn't really register because the media enforces a standard on Democrats that isn't met by "somewhat true."

(You may have guessed that in my personal search for scapegoats, I have landed on the media.)

... the media joining in on taking an honest-to-goodness economic boom (with declining inequality, even!) and emphasizing the minor negative aspects of it.

So true and, in retrospect, I think it's worth separating out the inflation coverage from jobs. I am less inclined to believe that the media coverage was responsible for people's frustration with inflation; I think that was a real popular sentiment. I do think the media coverage of unemployment / jobs / inequality has been a problem.

In other words, in the decades when economic growth correlated closely with economic sentiment and with whether presidents got reelected, the causative mechanism wasn't directly through people's pocketbooks, but mostly through the coordination of vibe communication, which has now collapsed.

I don't totally agree. The measures of a good economy have become increasingly untethered to people's lived experience. This is what I was getting at last week when I asked what economic indicator would be best. It's not all vibes.

Current headline inflation rate: 2.44%.

Rate in 1984 "Morning in America" that led to a Reagain landslide: 4%

That said, I don't think the Harris campaign botched the economy!

Voting on the basis of the economy is sane. Voting for fucking Trump because you believe he'll be better for the economy leaves me assuming that there's got to be some other reason you've come to that conclusion.

63: I agree that the economic measures are more untethered, but I think that was almost equally the case in the 90's and 00's with housing, college, and health care costs rising along with inequality, and we had the correlation between conventional economic statistics & voting for those "responsible" then.

Yeah, I'm in the group that has done really well over the past several years, have ample disposable income, and I am still regularly taken aback at grocery store and restaurant prices. I have no doubt people are feeling that acutely, day in and day out. Though I really can't understand people's gas price freakouts. It's like a dollar cheaper now than it was when GWB was president, not even adjusting those dollars for inflation.

Duds has been killing it lately https://x.com/mattduss/status/1854584248390582672?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ

64: Back then everyone was used to high inflation and so 4% inflation seemed relatively low.

My silly theory is that the problem now is that there are lots of people that until 2021-2022 had never experienced high inflation, so it seemed especially terrible to them, and then when the inflation rate went down, it still seemed horrible because the prices that had seemed so high went up even more (even as the economists were saying isn't it wonderful that the inflation rate is back to normal).

This should probably be my last comment for a while:

The sense of not just resignation but surrender this time is overwhelming. Someone will probably try to pull together a women's march, protests at the inauguration, etc., but it won't feel like there's any more force behind it than any other protest. There's the Times, the Post, et al (the Atlantic is gruesome), but also, Elke's school district sent this message (excerpted):

Elections are a time of passion and conviction, where we, as a community, come together to express our values and vision for the future of our students and schools. While there is understandably both excitement and disappointment following the results, I want to remind everyone of the core principle that unites us: we are all here for the success and well-being of our children.

To those who are feeling disappointed by the outcome, I want you to know that your voices matter, and your dedication to our schools and community has not gone unnoticed. We honor your commitment to making a difference, and your efforts will continue to shape the direction we move in. As a district, we will continue to listen to every voice, and we are committed to fostering a collaborative environment where everyone's input is valued. We are all on the same team when it comes to ensuring our students thrive.

To those celebrating today, congratulations. Your vision and passion have resonated with many, and we look forward to working with you to bring our shared goals to life. However, the work ahead is not just about one victory, but about continuing to build a stronger, more inclusive, and forward-thinking community where every child has the opportunity to succeed. Together, we will continue to lead with integrity, compassion, and a focus on student success.

Just try to count up all the things left implicit. In 2016, the text now escapes me, but the district's message to families was something about as blunt as "the safety of our immigrant families is foremost in our minds and we will protect you all." Different circumstances lead individual phrases to burn themselves into memory. I'm not going to forget "your vision and passion" for a long, long time.

Back then everyone was used to high inflation and so 4% inflation seemed relatively low.

It was a mistake to run inflation so low during the 2010s, consistently under the target of 2%. People go used to it and freaked out when we got hit by the real thing. I think a 3% target rate is the way to go.

Somewhere I saw the remark that it's clear now that given the choice of high unemployment or high inflation, a smart government will choose high unemployment - because only the unemployed bear the burden of unemployment, but everyone bears the burden of inflation, and will vote accordingly.

67: I used to go to Wegmans and prices there are much higher. I switched to the cheaper grocery store, Market Basket when
We moved. I think they brought their prices down after an initial surge, but even if they didn't, they were so much cheaper than the other stores already that it's either less than what I used to pay or the same. I pay a lot for milk, but that's because I buy it from a local dairy now. I could easily find more affordable milk.

Restaurants are a different story. I pause when buying a cup of basic drip coffee. And mostly just drink my own. I avoid eating not-good or mediocre food out. What I find is that a sandwich or slice of pizza in an expensive neighborhood is a lot more than it used to be, so I mostly cut that out.

Personally, I feel like there was a massive deflation in the cost of restaurant meals over decades, maybe not in nominal dollars, but in inflation adjusted ones. People got used to eating out or getting on a weekly basis. Even in the early 80's, that was a treat. We got used to it being really cheap, because the wages were so depressed.

But also, there's bakery in the next town over where I can get 1/2 sandwich for $5.25. The half is a full-size portion as far as I can tell, and these are really high quality. Market Basket sells large subs for $4.50-7 which is less than what I used to pay anywhere else, and they make an ok pizza for $15. $9 for plain cheese. Maybe these were all much cheaper before, and I didn't know because I went to different places.

Mostly agree with 71 - except that I used to be eligible for 2-3% merit raises and could get 3% pretty easily but now max out at 2.5%, so with increased health insurance premiums I am losing ground. Tim is doing fine, so no need to feel sorry for me. I just need a new employer.

70: I've been thinking about that shift here a lot. I've also been thinking about what I can do individually or as part of a group to resist.

We had low inflation relative to the post covid world thanks to the emphasis on progressive fiscal stimulus instead of asset price driven monetary easing.

I just read David Brooks latest. I don't have high standards for the man, but it was the dumbest thing I've ever read by him.

This is really interesting from an article* on what we learned about prediction markets from this election.

As for sharps, yes, prediction markets can't really attract smart money unless they also attract dumb money. But there are obviously sharps in prediction markets already. Here is a Wall Street Journal article about "Théo," the pseudonymous Frenchman who bet more than $30 million on Donald Trump on Polymarket because he had a differentiated view on polling, and also did his own polling:

Polls failed to account for the "shy Trump voter effect," Théo said. Either Trump backers were reluctant to tell pollsters that they supported the former president, or they didn't want to participate in polls, Théo wrote.

To solve this problem, Théo argued that pollsters should use what are known as neighbor polls that ask respondents which candidates they expect their neighbors to support. The idea is that people might not want to reveal their own preferences, but will indirectly reveal them when asked to guess who their neighbors plan to vote for.

Théo cited a handful of publicly released polls conducted in September using the neighbor method alongside the traditional method. These polls showed Harris's support was several percentage points lower when respondents were asked who their neighbors would vote for, compared with the result that came from directly asking which candidate they supported.

To Théo, this was evidence that pollsters were--once again--underestimating Trump's support. The data helped convince him to put on his long-shot bet that Trump would win the popular vote. At the time that Théo made those wagers, bettors on Polymarket were assessing the chances of a Trump popular-vote victory at less than 40%.

As Théo celebrated the returns on Election Night, he disclosed another piece of the analysis behind his successful wager. In an email, he told the Journal that he had commissioned his own surveys to measure the neighbor effect, using a major pollster whom he declined to name. The results, he wrote, "were mind blowing to the favor of Trump!"

This, I think, is the dream of prediction markets: That they will be big and liquid and reliable enough to incentivize people to do their own better private polling. Théo really wanted to know who would win the US election, not, apparently, because he had personal stakes -- he's French and says he has "absolutely no political agenda" -- but because he could make $50 million by being right. So he was willing to spend money to be right. And then he was right. And it is plausibly approximately correct that Polymarket was more informative about the US election than public polling was, because Polymarket incorporated better polling, because a guy with $50 million at stake on Polymarket was very focused on getting the best polling.

* The article is behind a registration-wall, but the newsletter is free, and Matt Levine is a great writer, so I'd recommend it.

72: also of course the people who are unemployed during periods of high unemployment will be predominantly young non-college-educated men (if I remember the last recessions correctly) who won't vote Democrat anyway.

I wish we had merit raises. Gotta freeze tuition and freeze salaries though!

If society weren't so coarsened now, "merit raise" would be a good euphemism for an erection to use in ads for Viagra and such.

I got a 10 piece Mcnug for $1.07 last night. Trump already solved inflation! Then I had a $14 can of Harpoon at the play we went to. FJB!

78: I work at a fancy hedge fund, and it has its own analytics team doing its version of the NYT needle in real time across races (based on largely the same public data sources). The goal is to provide portfolio managers with predictions faster than the public will get them. Nothing would stop me from looking at Slack and making bets in prediction markets based on those updates, since there are no compliance regimes around this. The French loner doing his own polls to make money is a nice Michael Lewis style story. But the reality is the bulk of the people making money on these things are free-riding on private, institutionally gathered information.

the dumbest thing I've ever read by him

Until his next column, anyhow.

83. From later in the article:

But my general impression is that most people in the prediction-markets world love insider trading:

"If the point of [prediction] markets is to get accurate information on the prices, then you definitely want to allow insiders to trade, even if that discourages other people from betting because that makes the prices more accurate," the George Mason University professor [Robin Hanson] told Decrypt in an interview. "And that's the priority."

I once joked about insider trading on a Manifold Markets prediction market about me, and then got emails from Manifold traders saying "oh no insider trading on Manifold is totally cool, that's the point." "Unlike many other places," Manifold's community guidelines say, "Manifold encourages you to make markets more accurate by trading based on private information you might have."[6]

Not everyone agrees. Kalshi, which is regulated by the CFTC, bans insider trading:

If a Member is an Insider that has access to material non-public information that is the subject of an Underlying of any Contract or that has the ability to exert any influence on the subject of an Underlying of any Contract, that Member is prohibited from attempting to enter into any trade or entering into any trade, either directly or indirectly, on the market in such Contracts. An "Insider" means any person who has access to or is in a position to have access to material non-public information before such information is made publicly available.

And I suspect that will continue to be true of US regulated prediction markets: "Go ahead and insider trade because it makes prices more informative" is the sort of thing that you expect to hear from George Mason economists and crypto enthusiasts, but not from the CFTC, which has expanded its insider trading enforcement in commodities markets. But soon it will be a new CFTC, probably one that is friendlier to prediction markets, so who knows. I am tempted to say "I look forward to writing about prosecutions for insider trading on elections," but maybe there just won't be prosecutions?

Looking at exit polls (which are not completely accurate, so take this as a very tentative result and probably wrong) I was struck by something.

The CNN exit poll estimated that in 2024 the electorate was 71% white (29% voters of color). Wikipedia has the numbers for 2020 at 67%/33%. If you take ~158M votes cast in 2020 and ~153M in 2024 that gives you this result:

If the ratio in the exit poll is correct about 106M white people voted in 2020 (and 52M people of color), and in 2024 it was 108.6M white people and 44.4M people of color.

That's a big drop-off.

I haven't read the whole thread but it's possible some voters reasoned like this:
A) I care about abortion rights and it's on the ballot for my state.
B) Abortion was the only issue where Harris was clearly better than Trump because my concern is the economy
C) I can vote for Trump and abortion rights.

And that's 7 of 10 states?

Yeah, I've wondered if that wasn't the case.

87: Didn't we talk about this? Turnout is too incomplete to make even tentative judgments for now as California counts so slow.

89 to 86.

The other thing is that Trump was running ads about how be didn't want to ban abortion. Those were almost the only Trump ads I saw in the last week.

Also to 86, I'm not sure how white voters can be a greater presence this cycle given that the exit polls also have white voters moving slightly Dem and voters of color significantly to GOP. I think you need to compare the same two polls across 2020 and 2024.

89: It's because of Sesame Street. You don't need to say 'ah, ah, ah' between numbers.

And no one is finished counting. But here's my theory:
a) the economy actually is pretty good, so it's not a standard "change" election with "throw the bastards out" levels of turnout.
b) Harris is kind of stuck because the good economy isn't obvious because of inflation, but she also can't run as the changish candidate bc she is the vice president.
c) There is not a lot of enthusiasm for Trump. In 2020 we had people with their flags in Trump parades. In 2016 crazy cheering and a solid week of catcalls. This time, crickets. Dude has empty rallies. It doesn't feel as urgent. So his turnout is lower, too, but groceries and housing are in everyone's face.

"It's the economy, stupid" still holds.

I have a very nice, if small house. We had to kill a ground hog to protect it.

86. 89: That is using an estimate of total votes at least, actual counted votes is ~142M So assumes about 11M votes outstanding.

The bigger issue is when people make arguments based on the 142M and various nationwide swing %s based on current counts. Just so happens that 2 largest late counters are heavily Dem.

Also media leaning into how "decisive" this victory is versus Biden in 2020.

87: Didn't we talk about this? Turnout is too incomplete to make even tentative judgments for now as California counts so slow.

Sure, but the turnout number isn't the important part of the calculation. That said, I am also skeptical of the exit poll estimates, but it's incredibly important if correct.

Also to 86, I'm not sure how white voters can be a greater presence this cycle given that the exit polls also have white voters moving slightly Dem and voters of color significantly to GOP. I think you need to compare the same two polls across 2020 and 2024.

That's why I found it interesting. It helps explain a mystery. If the proportion of white voters remained the same and white voters moved 3 points towards dems (for example), that would mean that voters of color moving 6 points towards Republicans would be a net 0 change.

But if the proportions shifted, you could get White Republican voters representing a larger share of the electorate EVEN THOUGH white voters shifted towards the Dems and the represented a lower proportion of white voters (If you're interested and I can offer some sample numbers).

But most likely it is just an incorrect estimate.

My wife wants to move to a house up your way, but that would interfere with my hobby of drinking too much and walking home.

86. 89: That is using an estimate of total votes at least, actual counted votes is ~142M So assumes about 11M votes outstanding.

Yes, I googled around to try to find an estimate but, as I mentioned above, the point of the calculation doesn't depend that much on the total number of votes; that just makes it easier to understand how much a difference it makes if the ratio really did change from 67/33 to 71/29.

My point is, essentially, that the 71% number probably isn't correct-- but if it is than it would be one of the most important facts about the election.

71% of what? I'm a little drunk and having math issues.

My former boss just texted me because I haven't been reading my emails. Science is a pain in the ass.

The CNN exit poll estimated that the electorate was 71% white.

Am I losing my mind? I think I just read this:

President-elect Donald Trump has named Susie Wiles, the defacto manager of his victorious campaign, as his White House chief of staff, the first woman to hold the influential role.

Wiles is widely credited within and outside Trump's inner circle for running what was, by far, his most disciplined and well-executed campaign

The only way that thing was disciplined is if there was BDSM involved.

It's all water sports with that crowd.

I can still clearly feel my nose, but I'm not walking well. My metric is having issues.

I'd add one point to the inflation comments: this has been the first incidence of meaningful inflation in the cellphone era (post-2008 or so.) It's very easy to photograph and share a price tag; nobody photographs their paycheck and says "check out these real wage gains!" I think it's gonna be clear to everyone soon that the traditional understanding of a "good economy" no longer applies: the same nightly news indicators still exist, but they just don't have the power to compel consensus.

Young people don't watch TV news anyway. It's all TikTok influencers and they can say whatever they want.

the same nightly news indicators still exist, but they just don't have the power to compel consensus.

I've mentioned before that my parents watch nightly network news, CBS for a while but more recently NBC. Maybe ABC before that? They tend to watch the same one of the big three networks for a while and then move to another one.

I've been seeing a lot more of the in the past couple years so I've seen more of the news. And it looks to me like there are deliberate editorial judgments to balance anything factual about "hot" issues like the economy or crime with opposing views that are dressed up versions of "nuh-uh, that's not how I feel."

Examples: a story about how crime has dropped back to near historic lows in many places (but not all places) when you look back over more than 2-3 years that nevertheless ended with a focus on the grief cause by a single crime unrelated to anything presented in the story up to that point. And numerous brief mentions of economic improvements followed by people who still feel like things suck, but generally employed people who think things suck since unemployment remains low.

There don't seem to be a lot of facts in the world of tv news, just sides. And a lot more people can represent a side than can present a fact.

41: Thanks lourdes! I did not know that.

Wiki tells me that the author of the Ukrainian lyrics was inspired by the Polish song. The Commonwealth lives! Now all we have to do is persuade the Lithuanians...

109: same with news in the UK to be honest. Print and TV lean heavily on anecdotes - not just to illustrate a larger story, but to be the story.

And, if I remember, an explicit attitude in the US that if Biden is doing something good and people don't know about it, it is not the job of the media to inform them because that would be "doing PR for the administration".

I had the impression nobody had mentioned la Wiles very much and yes, a search of the NYT shows a fair few hits post-election, one or two in 2021 and 2023, and on the second page, the mention that she quit Jon Huntsman's campaign in 2011!

https://www.google.com/search?q=Susie+Wiles+site:nytimes.com&num=10&client=firefox-b-d&sca_esv=8b7201df387949de&ei=-vstZ-2rG8y7hbIPpISquA4&start=10&sa=N&sstk=ATObxK7lPeyeoB2Gy6KsaJPiYI7QYpfjqpQF4Nzm_08LlqEI8zdidDRnfxsITG8xr4NJ64QofhihjXTFINQ4ShBH2PCXgyiDwuI__K1qwFuWBEIKcZKs--5LfD8h0RDUTiZ-&ved=2ahUKEwjtkInR1syJAxXMXUEAHSSCCuc4HhDy0wN6BAgHEAg&biw=1280&bih=531&dpr=1.5

OT, but Alex, it isn't a good look to pull up statistics on how many kids at schools get special dispensations when sitting exams because they have special educational needs, and assert that this is simply a case of them "bending the rules" to get an unfair advantage. That's kind of similar to what the Tories used to do when they claimed that thousands of people were claiming disability benefits because they were just obese and lazy. In fact, it's really extremely similar to that.

OT, but Alex, it isn't a good look to pull up statistics on how many kids at schools get special dispensations when sitting exams because they have special educational needs, and assert that this is simply a case of them "bending the rules" to get an unfair advantage. That's kind of similar to what the Tories used to do when they claimed that thousands of people were claiming disability benefits because they were just obese and lazy. In fact, it's really extremely similar to that.

You should take a look at the NAO report on this.

It says nothing to back up your assertion, which was that thousands of children who claim to have special educational needs are in fact tiny little fraudsters, playing the system with the help of their teachers to get an unfair advantage.

I think it's perfectly possible, and indeed highly likely, that the problem is going the other way; kids from poor backgrounds with SEN are being under-diagnosed, are badly supported (or not supported at all) by their schools, and are therefore at a severe disadvantage come exam time. That would have been a reasonable conclusion. The answer would be "more provision for SEN kids in state schools" which would be a great idea. You, however, decided instead to go for "clearly the little bastards are faking it".

I don't know about the situation the UK, but in US colleges the accommodations don't really seem be working as designed:

https://open.substack.com/pub/awaisaftab/p/psychiatric-disability-accommodations

112: I had the impression nobody had mentioned la Wiles very much

Yeah, one of several hate bombs for me this morning was a Dem political operative I follow reacting the news by congratulating her on a job well done and saying what a consummate professional she was. As co-chair with LaCivita I regard her as on of the more transactionally* evil people in America--an Albert Speer for our times.

*Mentioned her here the other day among those who absolutely know they are risking for the country and the world with the current R party and its leader. No that that is necessarily "worse" than the true cultists, but the hell with them.

I wish there weren't reports about Pelosi blaming Harris and Biden. I don't know that an abbreviated primary would have changed the situation. Democrats need to stop talking to reporters.

But also, why the hell was NJ so close?

I'd support an entire front page post about the link in 118, under the rubric of DISTRACTION, obviously.

120: NJ just had its senior Democratic senator convicted of corruption for a second time. Maybe a general disgust with politics altogether combined with not being a swing state suppressed turnout?

I just found this which is interesting a map that shows the change in turnout for each state relative to 2020 (click on "Turnout Change From 2020" at the top of the map) -- https://www.cookpolitical.com/vote-tracker/2024/electoral-college

So, for example, WA state was down 20% (which may change slightly as more votes are counted). NY/NJ each down about 10%

120.2: Trump was the largest private employer in Atlantic City for a couple of decades, and had a pretty good reputation for reviving the crappy local economy and paying decently. Also everyone's pissed at the state Democratic Party for not challenging Menendez or forcing him to resign after his first corruption trial ended, leaving him to ignore constituents and continue accumulating gold bars for a few more years.

123: Washington will change significantly .

123: Washington will change significantly .

True; it looks like ~500K ballots remaining to count, which is more than I would have guessed.

124.1 seems like it doesn't account for NJ going Trump -14 in 2016, -16 in 2020, and this year -5.

124.2 is a politics wonk thing, surely.

I feel like Trump was doing something intentional to get votes in Blue States so that he could claim a mandate by getting the popular vote even if the Dems had won in yhe electoral college.

That rally at Madison Square Garden was probably smart in a gross way.

128: It's not like Trump needs any facts to claim a mandate.