Today is Tuesday, 10/20 and the general US Elections are in TWO WEEKS.

As it stands right now, the current Senate composition is:
47 - Democrats
51 - Republicans
2 - Independents

Looking at the numbers, we COULD see a huge shift in the Senate this year, best case scenario would be:

52 - Democrats
45 - Republicans
3 - Independents

Chart Follows:

I've started using FiftyPlusOne for polling aggregation. It's a spiritual successor to 538, but if anyone has a better option, glad to be informed:

https://fiftyplusone.news/

I've been using Pollsmax. It's pretty good. Of course after every election I am reminded that there will always be surprises and I need to stop treating these sites as if they were a crystal ball

Voted in my tossup race yesterday; in person. This is the easy part; the cleanup we have waiting will take decades.

The fumigation alone will take decades. 😉

Very interesting, thanks. Boy, the difference between their polling and forecast is pretty stark. They are giving huge incumbency advantages to existing GOP senate seats, for example. Polling is D53-R47, and forecast is D48-R52, a 5-seat chamber control swing.

I don't know if that makes them more or less credible. GOP has outperformed in the past, and I'm very wary of vibes-based expectations, but Maine for example has Collins winning despite (1) their own average polling showing Jackson up by 2.7%, and three of four recent polls by 4%; (2) the last Senate seat going democratic; (3) the last presidential election going democratic; (4) the last governorship going democratic.

Makes it it feel like their forecasting formula is putting a pretty big thumb on the scale, but then again, every time I've allowed myself optimism in the last 10 years of elections, I've been disappointed.

I need a drink.

I was hearing about a South Carolina poll today predicting that 30% of the black vote is going to Darline Graham, which just seems absurd to me...

Yeah, that would be something.

I think the forecasts are useful thought experiments, but it seems if you dig deep enough in the methodologies, eventually you always get to a priori premises and assumptions that can't be supported except by intuition. It would be helpful for there to be a graphic map of those methodologies with "here be dragons" to denote when we've stopped using data. In any case, I'm holding onto some hope for this election despite those forecasts, but guarding it like a caveman would a fire.

Republicans are in panic mode over SC

This is giving me PTSD

Stella Parton, sister to Dolly, is claiming her voting machines changed her vote from Democrat to Republican more than three times in Nashville. Triple check your vote on machines and make sure a poll worker knows and get a copy that it registered

That's happened before on touch screen voting machines. It happens by either intentionally or accidentally mis-calibrating the touch screen.

82 year old Virginia senator Louise Lucas was just charged with public corruption involved with a cannabis company she owns.

They aren't even attempting to hide the fox. It's in and I don't even voting enmasse is going to save us. Along with the Parton story of machines switching votes already

I get that but it's now being reported in multiple states and they are having to press multiple times to get it fixed. If even 2% of voters don't notice this. It's game over.

Plus they just charged Virginia's senator with corruption. 82 years old. This is going to be rigged

Yeah, that's how the miscalibration "works".

When you calibrate a touch screen, it will ask you to touch certain points on the screen.

❌

Now, if you fail to touch the X, and instead touch somewhere off to the right, or underneath it, the screen will treat all subsequent touches in the wrong location.

Super easy to foul a touch screen like that and the only way to fix it is re-run the calibration, which could be tricky if you need the touchscreen to enter calibration mode.

State Senator and she was not running for office.