These guys are feeling themselves 
Stop Being Surprised
by Evan Scrimshaw | May 27, 2020 | Uncategorized | 1 comment
On Wednesday, two polls were released – one in the US, and one in the UK – which showed numbers that are currently outlier to consensus opinion, and caused some amount of noteworthy response. And in both cases absolutely nobody should be surprised if they’ve listened or read anything we’ve said.
Let’s start with Dominic Cummings because why not, honestly. The “data guru” who didn’t know how to thread tweets on Twitter is still in hot water for blatantly breaking lockdown rules, and after a press conference that put anything Armando Iannucci ever wrote to shame, he is still in office, hated by his Prime Minister’s caucus but apparently too important to sack in Boris Johnson’s mind. And then YouGov showed a 6% Tory lead, down 9% in the span of weeks, and everyone was freaking out at this eminently predictable poll. On Monday, I wrote that this scandal was the perfect scandal to fukk the Tories with Northern leavers who had finally trusted the Tories, and guess what? That’s who swung to Labour.
From a 4% Tory the last time they were in the field to a 10% Labour lead on Wednesday, YouGov is showing the Northern swing that I warned on Monday was possible if the government didn’t get rid of Cummings. To see it validated so quickly was a bit of a shock, but it was a perfectly logical expectation and it came through.
The US poll that came out was our buddies at Optimus with their latest US Presidential data. An 11% Biden lead, the poll is also notable for being a Likely Voter poll in May which is showing a Biden landslide. The demographic weights look pristine, so it’s not one of the junk polls that can come showing a 14% black electorate or some shyt like that. And yet, everytime we update one of our US models, the chorus is the same – bad faith arguments, 2016 whataboutism, and straight up lies about our record.
I don’t know how many times we need to see a trend first – whether it is the Canadian Liberals’ demographic efficiency that saw them lose the popular vote and win government handily, the Red Wall being sliced and diced by the UK Tories, calling all three 2019 Gubernatorial elections right, coming in second in the Democratic Primary model-off, correctly seeing both Montana and Kansas Senate as places where Democrats are currently leading, Republican weakness up and down the ticket in Georgia – before people stop being shocked by things that either our amazing models or writers see ahead of time. Both the big hit to Boris of YouGov and the landslide possibilities of Optimus are things that LeanTossup has pointed out before it happened, and they’re added to a proud list of such events. Obviously our record is not unblemished – while we got the Democrats winning both state houses in Virginia, we were overenthusiastic on their chances in a few seats per chamber, and my column archive is not unblemished of takes that make me feel like a moron. But on the whole, we have been right. We disagreed with consensus in Canada and kicked ass, and then we took on YouGov’s MRP and beat that too. All we can ask for is that the next time something happens that seems shocking happens in the land of polls and numbers, check here – we might have already called it.
Stop Being Surprised
by Evan Scrimshaw | May 27, 2020 | Uncategorized | 1 comment
On Wednesday, two polls were released – one in the US, and one in the UK – which showed numbers that are currently outlier to consensus opinion, and caused some amount of noteworthy response. And in both cases absolutely nobody should be surprised if they’ve listened or read anything we’ve said.
Let’s start with Dominic Cummings because why not, honestly. The “data guru” who didn’t know how to thread tweets on Twitter is still in hot water for blatantly breaking lockdown rules, and after a press conference that put anything Armando Iannucci ever wrote to shame, he is still in office, hated by his Prime Minister’s caucus but apparently too important to sack in Boris Johnson’s mind. And then YouGov showed a 6% Tory lead, down 9% in the span of weeks, and everyone was freaking out at this eminently predictable poll. On Monday, I wrote that this scandal was the perfect scandal to fukk the Tories with Northern leavers who had finally trusted the Tories, and guess what? That’s who swung to Labour.
From a 4% Tory the last time they were in the field to a 10% Labour lead on Wednesday, YouGov is showing the Northern swing that I warned on Monday was possible if the government didn’t get rid of Cummings. To see it validated so quickly was a bit of a shock, but it was a perfectly logical expectation and it came through.
The US poll that came out was our buddies at Optimus with their latest US Presidential data. An 11% Biden lead, the poll is also notable for being a Likely Voter poll in May which is showing a Biden landslide. The demographic weights look pristine, so it’s not one of the junk polls that can come showing a 14% black electorate or some shyt like that. And yet, everytime we update one of our US models, the chorus is the same – bad faith arguments, 2016 whataboutism, and straight up lies about our record.
I don’t know how many times we need to see a trend first – whether it is the Canadian Liberals’ demographic efficiency that saw them lose the popular vote and win government handily, the Red Wall being sliced and diced by the UK Tories, calling all three 2019 Gubernatorial elections right, coming in second in the Democratic Primary model-off, correctly seeing both Montana and Kansas Senate as places where Democrats are currently leading, Republican weakness up and down the ticket in Georgia – before people stop being shocked by things that either our amazing models or writers see ahead of time. Both the big hit to Boris of YouGov and the landslide possibilities of Optimus are things that LeanTossup has pointed out before it happened, and they’re added to a proud list of such events. Obviously our record is not unblemished – while we got the Democrats winning both state houses in Virginia, we were overenthusiastic on their chances in a few seats per chamber, and my column archive is not unblemished of takes that make me feel like a moron. But on the whole, we have been right. We disagreed with consensus in Canada and kicked ass, and then we took on YouGov’s MRP and beat that too. All we can ask for is that the next time something happens that seems shocking happens in the land of polls and numbers, check here – we might have already called it.
